


Something to Start With

by MulaSaWala, storyforsomeone



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bilbo is So Done, Cultural Differences, Domestic Fluff, Don't copy to another site, Fluff and Angst, Gandalf is Highly Amused, Hobbits and their feet, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Battle of Five Armies, They Get There In The End, Thorin and Bilbo think they’re subtle (they’re not), Thorin is a schmoopy mess, Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020, accidentally engaged, courting mishaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 51,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26193484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MulaSaWala/pseuds/MulaSaWala, https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyforsomeone/pseuds/storyforsomeone
Summary: “What is that?”Thorin follows his gaze. “Oh, that. During the fight with Azog he stabbed me through the foot from beneath the ice.”“He didwhat?!”Bilbo near yelps, and sure enough, now that he looks closer he can see where Azog’s blade must have pierced the top of the boot. Valar above, it had cleaved straight through. “Thorin, why in Eru’s name hasn’t this been looked at?”Thorin stares at him like he had forgotten Bilbo was an idiot. “I expect Óin had more pressing matters to attend to. Like, I suppose, the mortalstab woundin my chest.”_Or, where some things get lost in translation, courting mishaps have the whole kingdom losing their minds, and simple acts of kindness and love can go a long way.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Kíli (Tolkien)/Tauriel (Hobbit Movies)
Comments: 188
Kudos: 1789
Collections: Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written by storyforsomeone to complement a beautiful artwork by MulaSaWala for the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020. 
> 
> Thank you so much to MulaSaWala for enthusing about my writing, producing gorgeous art, and putting up with my ridiculously long emails at strange hours of the night. Collaborating with you has been an absolute dream, and I am incredibly proud to share what we've been working on!
> 
> Thank you also to the mods of TRSB for doing such a fantastic job setting this challenge up and running everything so smoothly. This has been my first experience of a collaborative event, and it has been a joy to be a part of.
> 
> Artwork embedded at the bottom of the chapter, alternatively linked here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CEhAozoldrX/?igshid=1jba86c1rplb1

The world falls away before him, all ice and breathlessness.

Wings beat the air above him, shrieking fierce victory on the wild, arctic winds. Below him, the land empties — orcs fleeing, their allies dispersing after the final rallying charge, and Thorin watches it all happen, as slow as a dream. Bruised clouds part and the sky brightens into a beacon of pearl and silver, turning everything to softness and gilded silence.

_Over. It’s over._

The knowledge of it drifts slowly across Thorin’s mind, lax of any urgency or triumph or alarm. Only weak, gut-wrenching relief.

He drags air into his lungs, staggering. Agony spears from the wound in his stomach, but the pain already feels far away, foggy through the numbness. He looks down. The world tilts. The valley shudders where he falls.

A chill sweeps over him, but still, all Thorin can feel is relief.

It’s not a bad way to go, all things considered. His foe is slain; the battle is won. Besides, what would he have to return to? A hollow shell of a home and a broken kingdom, slithering whispers of senseless desire and the false divinity of his right to rule. His legacy is nothing but ash and blood and ruin, shattered trust and bitter longing. Dragon fire gleaming in his crown of worthless gold, and a throne so high and overreaching that it blots out the voices of his own kin.

Better that he die here. Let his name pass into legend, his deeds fade into kind fabrications of glory and tragedy. Let those whose trust he had forsaken find some comfort in his death, in the least that he would cause no further damage and would burden them no more.

The ice beneath him burns his skin even as the cold seeps inexorably into his limbs. A different sort of wetness creeps across the small of his back, soaking into the ice in veins of haematite. Thorin’s chest heaves shallowly, his vision blurring, tugging him from his ravaged flesh into the velveteen depths of oblivion. It would be easy, he thinks, to stop fighting it.

And then Bilbo is there.

Bilbo — impossible, fierce, gentle creature that he is — is somehow there with him, and they’re close enough that Thorin feels the weight of his name fall from Bilbo’s lips. He tries to rise, to reach out, but even that small effort is beyond him. Dropping back is even worse. A wretched noise yanks from his chest, and hands fall upon him.

“No, don’t move.” Bilbo hushes him, his voice brittle with strain. “Don’t move. Lie still.”

He fumbles blindly for Bilbo’s hand, unable to keep from taking one last comfort, and Bilbo lets him, tangling their fingers together, tethering him there. His other hand flutters unevenly over Thorin’s body. It falters when it finds the blood. Thorin isn’t sure what to make of the complete devastation that wrecks its way across Bilbo’s expression.

“I’m glad you’re here.” He rasps, and he’s steadily losing the breath he has left, but for this, for the chance to make amends, damn it, he’ll speak.

Bilbo’s face spasms with pain when Thorin recites his own words back to him, soft, like a beloved story, reverent like something sacred, which in a way, he supposes they are.

_Go back to your books, and your armchair. Plant your trees. Watch them grow._

He wonders if Bilbo is surprised he remembers. He wonders if Bilbo knows how Thorin has carried those words with him, in darkness and despair and the blackest hours of the night, in every step he took toward finding a piece of that kind of belonging.

Wordless denial cracks in Bilbo’s throat when Thorin’s eyes dim — a small, wounded noise, full of grief.

_It’s alright_ , Thorin wants to tell him, but he has nothing left. Many moments before in his life Thorin had thought would be his final ones, but the icy weight dragging him downwards now cannot be mistaken for anything else. He knows he won’t survive, and it’s alright. Everything is finally quiet, and still — _peaceful_ in a way he can’t recall ever feeling before. Not since the smoke of dragon fire first filled his lungs. It would be so easy, so easy just to let go.

But then Bilbo says —

_“Don’t you dare.”_

It’s so not what he expects to hear, and yet something in it is so irredeemably _Bilbo_ , that Thorin wrenches himself back from the tempting abyss to stare at him. This hobbit, who commands kings, who seeks to stall death itself with his words. Not angry or pleading or anything close to deferential, but in a way that is entirely Bilbo. Soft but stern, chiding, matter of fact.

“Don’t you _dare_ give up, Thorin Oakenshield. Not now. Not after all that we…” Bilbo’s voice breaks on a sob. “There is so much — _so much_ you have left, to be and to enjoy and to do, so just, hold on, alright? Look at me. Keep your eyes open, and _look at me_.”

_I am_ , Thorin thinks, even as his eyelids dip. _I’m always looking. Don’t you know that?_

“Everything’s going to be okay, just… stay awake. _Stay_. Here, with me.”

He can’t. He knows he can’t. But he’ll try.

He distantly feels the stroke of Bilbo’s fingers against the base of his throbbing skull, one gentle hand cradling the back of his head.

“Hold on,” Bilbo whispers, and Thorin does.

* * *

Somehow, the aftermath of the battle is so much harder to bear than the battle itself.

Horrors that were numbed by adrenaline and terror and single-minded survival are now painfully stark in the desolation left behind. The slaughter may have ceased, but the earth betrays the extent of bloodshed — in deep, savage scars etched into the land and the ice that bleeds violent crimson. Bodies of all races mar the winter landscape: countless, shapeless figures already freezing in the glacial temperatures. Those who survived lie in crude healing tents or take shelter in the ruins of Dale, benumbed to the dead that lie around them. Camps are hastily erected, fires are stoked as dusk falls, but it’s too quiet. There is no semblance of victory here, no echo of song or cheer. Sorrow lingers in the air — a leaden, hopeless kind that hangs on them all like a paralytic. It’s one of those moments at the end of the world, where words don’t reach.

It’s hard to believe that anything can be left after such wanton death and destruction, but Bilbo thinks, somewhat desperately, that there must be _something_. Something that survives war, that outlasts darkness and despair, that escapes grief. Something that looks towards the light and does not wane, something to hang on to. Something to start with.

_(“Plant your trees. Watch them grow.”)_

Bilbo swallows hard, feeling the tears burning in his eyes again, the sob that stutters his chest and makes it difficult to breathe. From the moment one of the eagles had deposited them gently on the ground outside Dale, Thorin had been swept off so quickly Bilbo had to fight just to keep him in sight. He’d hovered uselessly on the threshold of the dwarves’ makeshift healing tent, staring at the maelstrom of activity within — _Óin_ _barking orders, the Company scrambling to obey, Dwalin and Bifur lowering Thorin with incredible gentleness next to Fíli and Kíli, the air smoky with death and the muted glow of oil lamps_ — staring and staring without really seeing any of it, until a last-bid hope arose in his mind and Bilbo stumbled away in search of a grey, wide-brimmed hat.

Now he sits on a piece of rubble just outside the tent, uncertain of his welcome inside but unable to bear being any further away. He shudders, drawing his knees close to his chest as the wind rakes across his face. Weariness pulls at his bones. His temple throbs dully, and his vision blurs and splinters. Still, his sensitive ears prick up at the faint sounds coming from behind the drapes of rough-spun cloth.

There is no lengthy enchantment, no blast of incandescent light or clap of thunder. Just a few muttered words and a whisper of air, because that’s all life is, a snatch of breath, a subtle word.

A second later, Gandalf steps out from the tent and Bilbo lurches to his feet.

“Is he…”

“I came in time, and I have called him back.” Gandalf’s face is haggard and drawn, and he leans on his staff as though it’s the only thing holding him up. Still, his voice is steady. “Thorin’s fate now rests with the healers, and in his own strength.”

Bilbo just nods, too exhausted by the emotional overload of the past few hours to muster any further response. And by all the Valar, it’s even more incredulous to think it’s only _been_ a few hours. Mere hours since the screams and the clash of iron and the twisted, broken bodies, anguish gleaming in Thorin’s eyes and the blood gushing through his fingers and the weight of him in Bilbo’s arms as wings bore them down from the cliff’s edge.

“And what of Fíli, and Kíli?” he manages to ask, pushing through the stranglehold of trepidation in his throat.

Gandalf’s bushy brow furrows for a moment. “I cannot say, but they breathe yet, and their injuries are nowhere near as dire as their uncle’s. Yes,” he says, voice warming with certainty, “yes I do not believe this will be the end for Fíli and Kíli.”

Gratitude floods him so abruptly Bilbo has to sit back down again, dropping his head weakly into his hands.

“Thank you,” he says, his voice muffled in his palms, because as much as it would devastate him to lose the youngest Durin’s, Mahal knows it would _break_ Thorin.

Above him, he senses Gandalf regarding him with that unsettling perceptiveness of his: a piercing blue stare ageless and inscrutable. “You did well, to keep him tethered here,” he says eventually. “Without you, I doubt Thorin would have lasted long enough to reach our aid.”

“Oh.” Bilbo shifts, flustered. “But I didn’t, I mean, I only —”

“It is hard to save a life that does not want to be saved.” Gandalf interjects serenely. His eyes twinkle, the colour of weeping skies and tired waters. “Do not undervalue the power of fellowship, Bilbo Baggins, for even the deepest of hurts can be allayed with the smallest of kindnesses. Despair is the enemy; hope is never foolish. You reminded Thorin of that, in the end.”

Bilbo just stares at his hands, blinking hard against the sudden welling in his throat. He wants to say it was nowhere near so noble and selfless as that, that he just wanted — _needed —_ Thorin to _live_ , because if he didn’t then what was the point of any of this? How was Bilbo supposed to go back to his small, ordinary world that was just that bit dimmer without Thorin Oakenshield in it? To work out how to belong in that world where Thorin didn’t exist?

But he doesn’t say any of this, because Gandalf already looks far too canny for his liking.

“Will he be alright?” He asks instead, and Gandalf tips his head innocently.

“Why don’t you go inside and see for yourself?”

_Because you, the Company, and more than a few armies witnessed my banishment only this morning. Because I’m not sure I can bear him sending me away a second time. Because I broke his trust in the worst possible way, and he nearly killed me for it, but then I held him as he lay dying and he looked at me like I was the sun and now I have no idea where we stand._

“I wouldn’t—” Bilbo stammers “— I mean, I don’t know if they… if I’m allowed…”

He is interrupted by a faint voice that comes from within. “Master Baggins?”

Bilbo freezes. His hands spasm as his side, legs trembling, half torn between fleeing far, far away and diving immediately inside the tent. He isn’t ready. Oh, he isn’t _nearly_ ready to face the owner of that voice, even as the sudden, heart-wrenching _relief_ guts him to the core.

Thorin is likely not meaning to summon him. He’s likely in pain, weak and delirious with it. He should be surrounded by his kin, his most trusted. Bilbo is the _last_ person he should want by his side, after what he did. It would be responsible really, to slip away quietly, remove himself from the equation and save Thorin the trouble of trying to bridge the expanse between them. Yes. That would be the respectable thing to do.

Of course, the moment he decides this, Thorin lets out a smaller, shredded — “Bilbo?” — that sounds so uncharacteristically vulnerable and hurting and — and Bilbo _can’t_.

He’s in the tent before he even registers the decision, and the Company are all there but Bilbo only has eyes for Thorin.

“I’m here.” He says, making straight for the King’s bedside. He drops to a crouch, taking Thorin’s outstretched hand automatically, a clasp like a handshake, except that Thorin’s fingers are trembling. “Right here, Thorin.”

Thorin lies half-buried in furs, his hair matted and tangled around his head, fresh bandages wrapped around his bare torso. He’s pale in a way that makes Bilbo’s heart clench — ashen-faced and sickly, with darkness gathered under his eyes and lines of pain at their corners. His gaze is as powerful as ever, though, searing indigo in the low light of the tent.

“Your banishment is annulled.” Thorin says before he can get another word in, solemn as a sacred vow, rasped through a throat thick with grief. “I say this witnessed by my kin and company. I revoke all that I said at the gate. You… you will always have a place among us.”

Bilbo shakes his head in mute protest, eyes burning. “Thorin, you don’t have to…”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I can’t—” Thorin’s voice cracks, and his throat pulses as he struggles. “I can’t expect your forgiveness, but you must — you must know that I would never…” He falters again, gasping through hitched, staccato breaths that strain against his bandages. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“No shh, it’s alright,” Bilbo hushes him, desperate for that breathing to calm, for that dead, wretched look in Thorin’s eyes to go away. “You weren’t yourself. You were sick. It’s alright. You didn't hurt me.”

“I tried to kill you.” It’s little more than a hoarse whisper.

“You didn’t.”

“I could have. Could have…” his face twists, pained and sick, “could have _thrown you…_ ”

Bilbo just shakes his head again, flailing for words, and realises that he’s afraid. Thorin’s closing off faster than Bilbo can reach him, bitter and defeated and drowning in visible self-loathing, and Bilbo is afraid that if he doesn’t find the right words now, he’ll lose him to it.

“Thorin, listen to me,” Bilbo says, gripping his hand. “It _wasn't your fault,_ alright? This was cursed gold, and an evil which we don’t yet understand, and a whole other combination of things beyond your control. It wasn't your fault. You were _sick_.”

“A fraction of an excuse.” Thorin rejects flatly. His head jerks in violent denial. “No, my mind may have been compromised, but my actions were still my own, and I will bear that shame for the rest of my life. There is nothing I can do, no gift and no promise, that can ever make amends for the harm I inflicted upon you, but I swear, Erebor will welcome and protect you always, as my… as _khazâd-bâhel,_ so long as you wish to stay…”

“Oh for — I _betrayed_ you, Thorin!” Bilbo snaps, because if he can’t shift Thorin’s guilt perhaps he can temper it with his own. “I stole from you, remember? The Arkenstone? Heirloom of your people? Symbol of the divine right of kingship? I stole it.”

Thorin’s eyes flutter closed, exhaustion making itself plain. “I gave you no choice.”

“I hurt you.”

Because he had seen the flash of genuine agony in Thorin’s eyes behind the madness, had heard true anguish in the soft, shattered way Thorin had said ‘ _you would steal from me?’_ as if Bilbo’s betrayal was a concept unfathomable to him.

A faint, mirthless smile whispers across Thorin’s lips. “I deserved it.”

“Thorin…”

But whatever Bilbo is about to say is lost when the weight on Thorin’s features falls away, his grip on Bilbo’s hand goes slack, and his breath rushes out in a deep sigh.

“Thorin!”

Óin is there in a heartbeat, one hand checking Thorin’s vitals and the other falling on Bilbo’s shoulder to halt him from leaping to his feet.

“Peace, Master Baggins. He’s sleeping, is all.”

_Valar above._ Bilbo’s knees weaken and he sits heavily on the edge of the cot, scrubbing a hand over his face as it all rushes over him, and wonders if there’s a limit to how many heart attacks Thorin bloody Oakenshield could cause him in one day. Perhaps he should ask Balin whether there’s a clause in the contract for ‘death by cardiac arrest from our great and fearless leader’s utter disregard for his own life and complete inability to restrain from _picking goddamn fights with everyone_.’

His next breath leaves him in a wobbling huff, hysteria bubbling under his ribs.

“Come on,” Óin’s voice tugs him back to the present. “Let’s get that head of yours looked at.”

It’s strangely hard to let go of Thorin’s hand, but Bilbo can’t think of an excuse to stay. He merely nods, detangling his fingers from Thorin’s and shuffling obligingly off the pallet to follow the healer. Óin’s examination is quick and methodical. His braids are unravelling and his eyes are dark and sunken with the day’s toil, but his rough hands are steady as they remove the worst of the blood and inspect the wound on Bilbo’s forehead.

“Your skull may not be as hard as ours, Master Baggins, but you’ll heal up fine with some rest,” he says eventually, withdrawing. He waggles one finger threateningly. “Just take care not to go picking fights with any hard surfaces anytime soon, alright?”

Bilbo dredges up a smile from somewhere, and clasps his arm briefly in thanks. “And what about Thorin?”

“Hmm? What’s that?”

“Thorin.” Bilbo gestures vaguely. “That wound on his head?”

Óin snorts. “Nought but a wee scratch, lad. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“But…”

“Would be useful to mind his fever though, mind you. Tricky things, these orc blades. All sorts of nasty stuff on them, and infection’s the last thing we want. Here,” Óin presses a fresh cloth and bowl of water in Bilbo’s hands, “whilst I see to the lads.”

“Me?” Bilbo stammers, disorientated. “Of course, only, is that… well, I mean, is that… ah, appropriate?”

_Appropriate to get so close, to touch and tend to, assume a yet unreached level of familiarity so soon after everything that’s happened?_

Bilbo may be tired, but he doesn’t miss the way Óin’s gaze flickers immediately to the mithril set he still wears, though he can’t imagine what that has to do with anything.

“Aye, I’d garner you’re as good as any, Master Baggins.” And with that, he’s off, busying himself with Fíli and Kíli, leaving Bilbo to gape wordlessly after him.

_Confound these dwarves._ Really, Bilbo should just run away back to his nice cosy smial and save himself all this fretful worry and trouble. It would serve them all right.

It’s unfortunate really that he’s gotten quite so attached to them all by now.

Bilbo lets out a long-suffering sigh, and turns back to the king. There’s no way to do this easily without getting close, so Bilbo ends up perched on the edge of Thorin’s pallet, one leg folded up underneath him so that his knee just brushes Thorin’s shoulder as he bends over.

He tries to curtail his thoughts to his task alone, but, well, said task _does_ involve staring at Thorin's face for extended periods of time at rather close proximity, and that’s all rather inconveniently distracting. Even now, covered in blood and battle’s filth, Thorin manages to look unfairly attractive given he’d spent the best part of the day grappling with orcs and clawing his way back from death’s door.

Then again, Thorin managed to look attractive even when they were all half drowned in their underclothes and covered in fish guts, so he supposes a bit of blood is hardly a challenge.

Bilbo chokes back another bout of hysteria, and fights to put the thought out of his head. He’s long made his peace with the unfortunate inevitability and rather more fortunate _im_ possibility of his slight infatuation with the dwarf king.

Really (excluding the fact he’s a stubborn, disagreeable, pig-headed oaf) Bilbo can’t see how one would _not_ feel drawn to him. He’s _Thorin Oakenshield_ — the tragic, warrior king straight out of legend. Noble and selfless and brave to the extent of idiocy, an unflagging determination that burned slow embers in a flame that refused to die, the sort of courage that gave strength to a broken people and inspired those people to follow; not just the strength to take up arms in battle, but the strength to get up everyday and fight to live another. One need only look at the dwarves who had crossed the length of middle earth for him to see evidence of the sort of loyalty and devotion he inspired.

Of course, the fact that he’s also devastatingly handsome with a smile that should really be classified as a deadly weapon and a knack for standing where the light hits him just right as he stares majestically off into the middle distance doesn’t hurt either.

He’s Thorin Oakenshield: king, symbol of hope and strength, fighting for a better world for his people, and it’s precisely that level of grand and unbelievable that places Bilbo at a nice, safe, never-going-to-happen distance.

A distance that’s feeling increasingly insubstantial as Bilbo painstakingly blots away the grime and blood on Thorin’s forehead.

Bilbo sighs again, wringing the cloth out, watching the water pool with red.

Beside him, Thorin remains thankfully unconscious throughout, but Bilbo can see his repose is far from easy. He sleeps as though on the edge of a fever. A pinch of distress creases his forehead, and his eyes move restlessly behind closed lids, dark eyelashes fluttering faintly against pale skin. Bilbo hesitates, then reaches out to tease some hair back from where it clings to the skin of his temple, feels the heat of Thorin’s brow against his fingertips.

He had never touched Thorin like this. There had been moments, along the journey — a hand on his forearm or his shoulder, more often literally pulling Bilbo out from harm’s way, but sometimes merely in a moment of stillness and catching their breath, a friendly clap of camaraderie that warmed him to the core.

This was another matter entirely. Clinical to a degree, but far more intimate. Let’s face it, Bilbo’s basically caressing Thorin’s face by this point, his thumb brushing Thorin’s cheekbone, smoothing over the delicate lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes. Part of him expects someone to come over and stop him, chide him that it’s not his place to touch Thorin so, but no one does. Likely they’re all too occupied with Fíli and Kíli to notice.

In a daze, he repeats the motion, brushing some stray sweat-drenched curls away from Thorin’s forehead, letting his fingers drift through the great dark fall of hair. Thorin’s eyelids flicker; Bilbo stills. Then the king exhales, some of the strain on his face easing, and his head lolls to the side into Bilbo’s palm with a small murmur that tugs painfully at Bilbo's chest. He wonders, not for the first time, how long it’s been since Thorin let somebody just hold him.

“Master Baggins.”

Bilbo jerks so suddenly he nearly falls off the pallet. Flushing, he hastily retrieves his hand and looks up to where Balin has entered the tent, trying not to look as guilty as he feels.

“Balin,” he fumbles, “I was just… his fever, I…”

He trails off at the horrifically knowing look Balin levels at him. “Might I have a word, lad?” he asks kindly, eyes moving from Thorin to Bilbo with an enigmatic expression.

For a solid moment, Bilbo genuinely considers slipping on the ring right then and there and running away, if only to avoid what’s certainly going to be an incredibly awkward conversation.

He doesn’t. Bilbo dithers for a moment, pushing past the leaden weight of misery and mortification that sits in his belly, then carefully extracts himself off the pallet and follows Balin out of the tent. Icy winds buffet him the moment he steps outside. The harsh, white landscape stings his eyes, momentarily blinding him. He hears the tent flap fall shut behind them, and Bilbo braces himself for the inevitable reprimand, for Balin to warn him off, or worse, try and let him down gently. But then Balin lets out a heavy sigh and says —

“I wish to convey an apology.”

Bilbo’s thoughts stutter to a halt. He blinks at Balin, fully certain that he’d misheard. “You… hmm?”

“An apology, lad.” Balin repeats gently. “On behalf of all the Company: I’m sorry we failed to protect you.”

“Failed to…” Bilbo trails off. He opens his mouth, and closes it again, thoroughly thrown. “I’m sorry, you’ve lost me.”

Balin gives him a faint, strained smile. “We knew Thorin wasn’t himself. Many of us suspected that there was the potential for him to become a danger, yet we vastly underestimated how far it would go. We stood by and did nothing until it was almost too late.” Balin lets out a careworn sigh. He lowers himself stiffly onto a bit of rubble, running a hand over his face, looking for a moment, incredibly aged. “I confess, even in the depths of madness, I never truly believed he would harm you, but then the Arkenstone…”

Bilbo flinches, and Balin’s haggard expression softens. “None of us blame you for that, lad, Thorin least of all. We know it was necessary. But we should have done more to protect you from the repercussions. If not for Gandalf —”

“Balin, no, it’s really fine,” Bilbo assures him quickly. Honestly, _dwarves;_ between them and Thorin, the Company could probably rebuild Erebor on force of misplaced guilt alone. “I pushed him, when I stole it. If I hadn’t…”

“Then we would likely have all been dead before the orcs even arrived.” Balin cuts in. “Do not doubt yourself, Master Baggins. You did the right thing.”

“At what cost?” The words slip out unbidden. Bilbo looks away, staring at the solitary peak cutting stark lines into the sky, the snow glistening in the fading light. "Just because I can rationalise it doesn’t mean it wasn’t still a betrayal.”

“That’s something you and Thorin will have to work out for yourselves.” Balin puts forth plainly. “But laddie, I just want you to be careful. We will not be taking your safety so lightly again, but even so it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Thorin in the midst of his madness brought you to harm, and there’s no guarantee he won’t fall under it again.”

“But he fought it.” Bilbo maintains, suddenly defensive on Thorin’s behalf. “He _beat_ it.”

“For the moment, yes, but there has never been a case of anyone recovering from gold sickness — no precedent to tell us what to expect. He could still pose a threat to you.”

“I am not _afraid_ of Thorin.” Bilbo says hotly.

“No,” Balin muses, “no, you never were, were you?” And before Bilbo can think of what in Arda he’s supposed to say to _that_ , Balin goes on. “Do you recall what Thorin had us witness in there?”

Bilbo blinks at the seemingly random change in subject. “He revoked my banishment.”

“Thorin revoked everything he said to you _at the gate_.”

“…Yes? What does that have to do with…” Bilbo trails off as a thought occurs to him. Does this mean Thorin was holding to _other_ things he had said and done _not_ at the gate? Even words and deeds performed in the throes of dragon sickness? What else was there to revoke? Bilbo tries to recall all their interactions in the mountain, but the whole thing is a bit of a blur — the acorn, the throne, the armoury…

He stills as he notices Balin’s gaze drop fleetingly to the mithril set he still wears.

“Is it this?” Bilbo guesses, fingering the collar of the silver steel. “Does he want it back?”

Balin’s face goes almost comically horrified, draining of colour so quickly Bilbo thinks he might fall over. “No,” he gasps, “no, Mahal, laddie, _no._ Thorin gave it to you; he certainly doesn’t want you to return it.”

“Okay,” Bilbo says dubiously, terribly confused now at his reaction.

“Just maybe don’t publicise it, if you catch my meaning?”

Bilbo really has no idea what he’s going on about. “What are you saying, Balin?” He sighs, feeling what little patience he had evaporating.

“I’m saying that thousands of people across three races witnessed yours and Thorin’s actions on the ramparts. Thorin may have annulled your banishment, but some of Dáin’s folk may not be so quick to forgive the bartering of the Arkenstone, nor indeed in light of that be quite as accepting of your… _closeness_ , with the King.”

_Closeness?_

Bilbo’s stomach drops. An odd sense of vertigo suffuses him — the feeling when there’s an extra step than you were expecting in the dark, and for a moment you flail in horrible _nothingness_ before your foot connects with solid ground.

Had he really been so blind, so damnably transparent?How many had guessed at his hopeless feelings for the king, seen evidence of his regard written all over his face? Did _everyone_ know how irreparably enamoured he was with Thorin?

Did _Thorin_ know?

The cold air burns in Bilbo’s lungs as they struggle to get enough oxygen. Some of his panic must show on his face, because Balin looks worried now.

“Calm yourself, Master Baggins.” He commands, clasping Bilbo’s shoulder in steady reassurance. He must have gotten to his feet at some point without Bilbo noticing. "It is not all so dire. If we were not in the midst of such upheaval, this would be subject to much greater scrutiny, and politically would prove a far more difficult path to navigate, but in the circumstances… well. Let’s just say that there are other problems to concern us all with, survival being the foremost, and that gives you — the two of you — time to decide.”

Again, Bilbo is completely, hopelessly lost. “Decide _what_?”

Balin’s eyes fall on the mithril again. He opens his mouth —

And then from inside the tent, Kíli cries out.

Both of them freeze, heads snapping toward the sound.

A second later, Fíli’s voice drifts out, blearily. “Kíli?”

“They’re awake!” Dwalin shouts from within, and both Balin and Bilbo are back inside before he’s even finished speaking.

The following stretch of time is a chaos of movement, holding this, binding that, fetching water, making way for the red-haired elf who crops up out of nowhere to help, her and Óin’s heads bending together in consultation before Óin’s sending Bilbo outside to hunt for useful herbs because he doesn’t trust the dwarves to recognise them, back and forth and back and forth, and by the time Bilbo has a moment to catch his breath, hours have passed, dusk has fallen, and the boys and their uncle sleep soundly, safe in a restorative sleep. Bilbo watches the three of them for a long time, numb to everything else, comforted by the rise and fall of their breathing.

_“Let’s just say that there are other problems to concern us all with, survival being the foremost, and that gives you — the two of you — time to decide.”_

_“Decide what?”_

He sways on his feet, shutting his eyes.

That strange plethora of panic and fear and hope twists again in his stomach, but it dulls quickly this time, as though he doesn’t have the energy to sustain it. Bilbo rubs his forehead, fighting past the hazy weight of sleep deprivation on his mind, the aftermath of emotional overload crashing on the horizon. He barely notices someone take his elbow when he falters, guiding him to a stool in the corner. The weight of a heavy blanket settles around his shoulders, accompanied by a gruff, “sleep, laddie” that sounds a bit like Dwalin.

_“Decide what?”_

And it’s only then, in the final velvet moments before sleep claims him, that Bilbo realises Balin never gave him an answer.

* * *

For the next few days, Thorin’s world shrinks to the shadowy canvas of the tent and dreams filled with fire and smoke.

He grasps moments of lucidity like a drowning man, clawing for breath, but even those are lost in pain that ravages his body, the voices around him that throb like dragon’s wings, the distant grip of a small hand in his, anchoring one heartbeat to the next.

The dreams are worse, though. Memory bleeds into memory, fever-induced delusions blurring real and not.

_“You’ve won the mountain. Is that not enough?”_

_“Take back your homeland…”_

_“You turned away from the suffering of my people!”_

_“You are lesser now than you have ever been…”_

Hazy images of carnage and ruin, of gold that slithers, Bilbo’s coat bunched in his fist, of blood and ash and Laketown burning over the gut-wrenching cries of his people screaming out —

_So many had died that day in the mountain when Smaug came, but almost as many died on the long road through the wilderness. Shunned of succour from the elves, dismissed by men, hundreds and thousands of dwarrow succumbing to wounds or sickness, starvation or winter’s toil, strong and weak alike, children and elders, new lives ended before they even began, all of them crying out, all of them looking to Thorin to lead them —_

_“Everything I did, I did for them.”_

The age-old grief sinks through him, hollowing him out until he can only curl around the jagged edges, gasping for breath.

_All of it for them, and yet none of it was supposed to be like this. Not the mountain, the gold, the battle. He had the chance to make it right, and he’s ruined it all._

His despair manifests in a never-ending surge of assailants that come at him from all sides, because this is all he’s ever known, all he is. All around his home is burning, and somewhere his nephews are crying out for him, but there are too many — he can’t get to them, just as he couldn’t get to his grandfather, his father, his brother.

_Failure after failure after failure_

Globs of gold drag at his feet. Countless swords clash against his with a terrible scrape of steel, reeking the air with blood. He starts seeing Bilbo’s face on every foe he’s slain, crumping at his hand as tearless sobs burn his throat.

_He’s ruined them._

_He’s ruined everything._

Thorin thrashes, a cry wrenching from him, trying desperately to tear free from the suffocating darkness —

“Easy, shh, it’s alright, you’re alright.” A voice parts the inky depths of sleep, accompanied by a feather-light pressure across his brow, a brushing down the back of his head. “Breathe, Thorin. It’s alright. There you are.”

He shudders, eyelids creaking open, gagging on the iron taste of blood. He must have made some noise, because almost immediately there’s a cup held to his lips, the cool of water soothing his throat.

“Slowly now, not too—”

Thorin chokes. Agony blooms in his stomach as he coughs, chest heaving, every shard of air tearing at his lungs.

There’s a small, exasperated sigh from above him that sounds a bit like _stubborn dwarf_ , but the stroke upon his brow doesn’t falter, soothing in its steadiness. “Breathe. You’re okay. Breathe for me, Thorin, come on, in and out… there you go.”

He breathes. His body slackens, spent. It’s a slow surface to reality, blurred surroundings gradually coming into focus. Flickering candlelight, tent drapes billowing in the wind, the bustle of activity: he’s in a dwarven field tent. Probably Ironfoot. More sensation trickles in. The pull of bandages, the roar of the wind outside, the distant murmur of conversation from his Company, Óin’s voice closer by.

A hand in his.

“Bilbo,” he mumbles.

The hand spasms, and quickly lets go.

Thorin turns his head to see Bilbo crouching beside him, his face washed out in the guttering yellow glow of the oil lamps. He looks odd — distant, somehow. His eyes glint like struck flint in the darkness, painfully uncertain.

“You’re bleeding,” Thorin says. Later he’ll think that was a strange thing to focus on, but right now it’s all he can see — the blood in Bilbo’s hair.

Bilbo huffs a small, strangled laugh. “You’re in no position to talk, Mister Oakenshield.” Thorin blinks when he reaches out without ceremony, presses the back of his hand briefly to Thorin’s forehead in a way that suggests he had done the same thing many times before. “Óin.” He calls without looking away. “He’s awake. I think the fever’s broken.”

Óin’s face appears in his view, grim and wan, but some of the lines scored across the planes of his expression ease as he repeats Bilbo’s action.

“Aye, and not a moment too soon. Fetch me some broth, would you lad? And try to get more water in him. All the healing in the world will be for nought if he wastes away.”

The hobbit ducks out of the tent so quickly Thorin is left wondering whether he imagined him. He ruthlessly stifles the irrational pang at Bilbo’s absence, and makes the gargantuan effort needed to grasp the nearest part of Óin’s arm.

“Fíli? Kíli?” Their names crack his throat, hoarse from lingering dread.

“Healing.” Óin reassures plainly. He gestures behind him to where Thorin can just about make out two occupied cots. “Doing a far sight better than you, I might add. They sleep now, but they’ve been asking for you for several days.”

For an instant, breathing is impossible, his relief infinite. Thorin shuts his eyes, weak with it. The crushing pressure on his chest eases momentarily, the world turning to air and weightlessness.

“My thanks.” He chokes out. It’s a poor expression of the force of his gratitude, but Óin knows well enough what the two boys are to him, and clasps his hand firmly, his eyes kind.

“Don’t thank me just yet,” he chides, but the healer is smiling. “Ah Master Baggins, thank you.”

As though magnetised, Thorin’s gaze alights back on Bilbo. It’s the first time he’s been able to look at him properly since the mountain, and he drinks in the sight like one parched of thirst.

The hobbit who stands in front of him is a far cry from the one he had met in Bag End. The fine coat he had left the Shire in is a sorry sight, torn and ragged from months on the road, bloodied from the battle. He’s thinner now, more slender at the waist. There’s a new hardness to his face that isn’t just from lack of eating though: it’s as though something within him has sharpened, focussed somehow. Like something flighty has settled. Like something that was hidden is now there for everyone to see.

As though sensing his gaze, Bilbo looks up to meet it. He’s pale, and evidently exhausted, but otherwise seems unharmed. His eyes meet Thorin’s with a strange, contemplative look that Thorin can’t read at all.

Then again, Thorin’s never done very well with reading Bilbo Baggins.

There were always too many contradictions about him — this prickly, well-mannered, gentle creature who lectures trolls on seasoning and throws himself at orcs, who looks so small and breakable yet somehow escapes a mountain full of goblins with nothing more than a few buttons lost. The strange, seemingly unpredictable changes in his temper, how that mask of manners could shift to shining sincerity in the blink of an eye, how polite, idle chatter and pert remarks could snap to spitting anger without warning.

And then the biggest contradiction of all: that even now, after all the perils Thorin had dragged him through, all the harm he had done him, Bilbo was still here, at his side.

It doesn’t make sense. _He_ doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t be _here_ — why, _why_ is he here?

“Think you can manage to follow instructions this time?” Bilbo says mildly, as he steps up with a bowl of stew and a faintly alarming look of determination whilst Óin busies himself with fixing fresh bandages.

Thorin brings up his signature glower out of reflex, but they both know that hasn’t worked on the hobbit since the Carrock, so it’s more of a token protest than anything.

This time Bilbo helps him drink it, one hand supporting his head without seeming to give it much thought. It should make Thorin feel like an invalid — if it had been anyone else he probably would have snapped at them for the nerve of it — but for some reason it makes him feel anything but. Bilbo’s fingers linger on the nape of Thorin’s neck, but he doesn’t push or pull, and the gesture, unassuming and gentle, makes warmth curl helplessly in his stomach.

Thorin can't figure him out at all. Bilbo’s inconsistencies endlessly frustrate him. They make his head hurt. 

But somewhere along the journey, that frustration had turned into quite something else, and Thorin was increasingly unable to pretend that the way he thinks and feels about Bilbo is mere frustration or fascination or even strong affection for a loyal comrade.

He just… _wanted_. In every possible way one being can want another.

And for Thorin, who’s been told all his life that his existence is sacrifice, that he does not belong to himself because he exists for others, first and last; for Thorin, who’s spent his entire life losing things, over and over again, and is terrified of carving out even the smallest piece of happiness because anything you love is just another thing that can break you: he has no qualms burying that want deep, deep inside. Where it had remained, until a dragon’s malice had brought it to the fore and twisted it against him.

“Thank you,” he manages gruffly, when he’s had all the broth he can. Again, he finds the crudeness of the phrase hopelessly inadequate to encompass everything he wants to say, but Bilbo just smiles, a brief quirk of his lips.

“You’re welcome.”

But of course, there’s that strangeness again — that polite, careful neutrality. An impassable expanse gaping between them.

Thorin shouldn’t be surprised. Forgiveness was an easy thing to grant when the one asking teetered on the brink of death. Now the reality of what lay broken between them would be a far more difficult task to mend, if it could be fixed at all.

Bilbo avoids his gaze as he straightens. The lapse of silence that sits between them is painfully uncomfortable. Thorin wants to say something, afraid that if he doesn’t try to close the distance between them now he might never get the chance, but before he can Bilbo steps away, switching places seamlessly with Óin. He busies himself depositing the bowl with what looks like unnecessary diligence. Óin starts poking and prodding and asking him questions, but Thorin is only half listening, his focus unwavering from Bilbo. It’s only because he’s watching that Thorin sees his coat slip, revealing the telling glint of mithril underneath.

He feels his throat close up, his breath stutter once more in his broken chest.

Another wretched complication. Another hope tainted by madness. Another thing he’s managed to ruin.

He closes his eyes.

“Thorin?” Óin prompts to some unheard question, but Thorin can’t. 

He knows he’s trembling, but it’s all he can do to lie there, mute. Shame burns within him, hotter than any dragon fire.

He hadn’t been able to help himself. All the riches of Erebor, and then there was Bilbo smiling with his acorn, pure and humble and brazen and far too _good_ to possibly be real, and Thorin had been utterly lost.

His entire Company had witnessed him gift Bilbo the second wealthiest item in the mountain whilst in the throes of dragon sickness, as if the act itself wasn’t obvious enough. They knew well enough what it meant. A gesture hastened in the paranoia of greed, of wanting his claim established upon that which was his, of bestowing upon Bilbo the best protection he could offer; but a true gesture nonetheless. One all of them, save Bilbo, had recognised.

_Damned fool._

Even if Bilbo could forgive him for the breaking of their friendship, how could he ever accept a courtship offered under such circumstances? A courtship that was followed by such unforgivable action on his part?

It didn’t matter that the proposal had been made in utter sincerity, didn’t matter that Thorin would do the very same right this instance in sound mind if he could. There was no question about it. Bilbo would never accept it. Would never accept _him._

Surely it’s better, then — _necessary,_ even, if their friendship were ever to recover — that Bilbo never finds out what the gesture had meant.

The anguish that hits him then is worse than any wound. It drowns out the shrieking agony of his injuries, reducing them to mere whispers in the face of his misery.

Distantly, he’s aware of Óin saying his name again. Thorin just shakes his head, overwhelmed, his body wracked with tremors that he can't get to stop.

_What more proof does he need that he can’t do anything right, that he’s incapable of deserving love, that everything he touches turns to ash? That even this, even his own love Thorin has managed to ruin and corrupt and destroy._

“Thorin.” That’s Bilbo’s voice now, and that’s worse, because he sounds soft and concerned and a thousand other things Thorin doesn’t deserve, and as Thorin opens his eyes to see the force of Bilbo’s care staring back at him he can’t help but hesitate, can’t help the tiny flicker of doubt, of _hope_.

But then Thorin thoughtlessly reaches for his hand and Bilbo startles, skittish as a bird, his cheeks flushing and something like panic flickering across his face, and Thorin lets the hope die.

Bilbo would never accept him, would never want him the way Thorin wanted. Why else would he recoil from Thorin’s touch? Why else would he react so? To Thorin’s eyes he all but flees, stammering some vague excuse and vanishing through the tent flap, and he doesn’t come back.

No.

After that, Bilbo doesn’t come back for _days_.

His Company exchange unintelligible glances when he musters the courage to ask. They tell him Bilbo returns when Thorin sleeps, helping tend to Fíli and Kíli for the most part, but occasionally Thorin wakes with the memory of a hand weaving soothingly through his hair, and he knows his nephews aren’t the only ones Bilbo watches over.

Thorin doesn’t understand that either. Why Bilbo stays when he sleeps but is gone when he wakes.Why he would tangle their fingers together in the depths of Thorin’s fever but shy from his touch when Thorin is lucid again. All he can conclude is that it is his actions that keep Bilbo at a distance, and leave it at that; he’s put Bilbo through enough already.

Sometimes though, when dusk drags at the sky and night’s chill makes plumes of his breath and Thorin hears the tent flap pull back, he keeps his eyes closed and his breathing steady. Feigning sleep just to sense Bilbo near him, his soft touch and tender gaze as he adjusts Thorin’s furs, his fond, exasperated scolding when he thinks Thorin can’t hear, the overall _gentleness_ of it all when Thorin hasn’t been treated gently all his life, and he knows better, knows it doesn’t mean anything, knows that this is something he’s ruined beyond repair and that he needs to accept that, but it still hurts.

It just hurts.

* * *

For someone of Bilbo’s stealth and stature, it’s shockingly difficult for him to go unnoticed in the makeshift camp that inhabits the ruins of Dale.

Rumours of the hobbit in the company of dwarves who stole the Arkenstone to levy for peace have clearly spread. Men, elves and dwarves alike all recognise him on sight now, and Bilbo feels their curious gazes following him in the days he spends passing through their midst.

Wandering aimlessly, he supposes it must look like. Scouting out the situation and reading the mood of the people, if one were being kind.

Removing himself from temptation is more the truth of it.

Bilbo sighs, drawing his knees closer to his chest where he’s curled up in some lonely corner of the skeletal buildings.

During the depths of Thorin’s fever, he hadn’t had the chance to worry that his level of care was evidently surpassing sentiments of mere familiarity and friendship. How could he, when Thorin’s life and so many others’ hung in the balance?

But then Thorin had woken again with clear eyes, and Bilbo was left flailing: unable to find his way back to where they were before but at a loss as to how to go forth from here. How he was supposed to feel and behave around Thorin now that they had crossed that invisible line, somewhere in between acorns and whispered apologies on an icy clifftop and Bilbo begging him to stay just a moment longer.

He tries, though. Tries to stifle it, to act normal. To push out into the terrifying expanse of no-man’s-land that was their crumbling friendship and find some spot of neutrality to start from.

And then Thorin looks straight at him in that healer’s tent, his eyes too big and too vulnerable, and reaches for his hand, and Bilbo straight up panics.

_Fool of a Baggins._

Bilbo squeezes his eyes shut. Some of it had been mere reaction — an inevitable remnant of the guilt and betrayal that had wrecked the space between them.

Most of it had been quite the opposite. The _want_ that had hit him in that moment was staggering. He wanted to let Thorin tug him near, to climb onto the pallet and curl himself around the dwarf, crowd up into him until he could feel Thorin’s tension melting away. He wanted to sweep his thumbs over the bruise like shadows under Thorin’s eyes, to press his forehead to Thorin’s, whisper that it was okay, and kiss him until he believes it. Bilbo wanted to hold him until Thorin stopped looking like he was about to fall apart any moment.

But instead, Bilbo had fled. _Fled._ Like some pathetic, lovestruck tween.

Bilbo lets his head fall back to thud lightly against the wall. Things between him and Thorin are complicated and thorny enough as it is; if he can’t control himself, surely it’s better to remove himself entirely. Put some distance between them until the dust settles, and the blurred lines of heart-wrenching betrayal and confusing intimacy reassert themselves into firm, safe boundaries once more. The last thing they need right now is Bilbo’s feelings sabotaging any hope of repairing what they had broken.

So in the days since he’d fled the healing tent, Bilbo doesn’t return. He touches base with the Company daily of course, and lends a hand where he can, and tries generally to make himself useful. He forages herbs for Óin and helps Bombur with the cooking and runs errands for Balin in his increasing frenzy to organise their forces and supplies. He finds himself making an effort to speak with the general mass of men and elves and dwarves around him. Bilbo might not be able to help with much, being neither particularly strong enough to build shelters nor canny enough to work out the distribution of their dwindling supplies, but if there’s anything that years of dealing with nosy, overbearing relatives have taught him, it’s how to make small talk in highly uncomfortable situations.

It’s surprisingly productive. One of the benefits from having your world knocked so far off axis is that there’s little time for petty animosity when everyone’s fighting the same battle for survival; little point for old antagonisms when all of them had fought and died side by side when it counted.

That, and Bilbo reckons he can get away with an impressive amount purely because everyone who encounters him is so nonplussed that this polite, non-threatening little person has the nerve to talk to them that it prevents them from even considering a punitive response.

Fairly soon he has burgeoning friendships across all three races. The red-haired elf named Tauriel in particular has endeared herself to Bilbo very quickly, they both of them being outsiders (though at least Bilbo’s semi-exile is of his own choice). He doesn’t ask her why Thranduil wants nothing more to do with her, and in return she doesn’t ask him why he flits about the camp spending his time with strangers instead of his friends and running errands on behalf of a king he daren’t visit except under cover of dark.

Because of course, Bilbo can’t keep away entirely. He slips back into the healing tent at night, when no one can see the thoughts written across his face, moving around Óin as they work quietly and obsessively near each other tending to the three Durins.

Bilbo knows he’s kidding himself. He _knows_ better, knows that he’s only delaying the inevitable, knows that he should be staying away from Thorin and he would be doing them both a favour by doing so, but somehow he keeps ending up back at the healing tent. He can’t seem to keep away. His only saving grace is that he at least restricts his visits to when Thorin is asleep.

The downside of this brilliant plan is that his dwarves clearly don’t know how to handle all these new people vying for Bilbo’s time.

“Your friends are accusing me of stealing you away,” Tauriel’s voice finds him tucked away in his alcove. The elf had an uncanny ability to track him down whenever Bilbo squirrelled himself away.

Bilbo sighs. He lolls his head sideways to look at her, absently rubbing his hands together in a pitiful attempt to warm them. “They spoke to you?”

“‘Spoke’ implies civility. _Threatened_ is perhaps more accurate.”

Bilbo winces, but Tauriel looks more amused than offended, so he figures it can’t have been too bad.

“I’m sorry. Dwarves can be…”

“Protective?”

“I was going to say _overdramatic_.”

The corner of Tauriel’s mouth lifts. She settles herself down next to him with that irritatingly effortless grace of hers. “They certainly don’t seem overly keen on other people taking up your time. They were quite… emphatic in their concerns.”

“They’re a possessive bunch,” Bilbo agrees, aiming for exasperated but ending up rather too fond. He senses Tauriel eye him with that silent _knowing_ look that all elves seem to possess.

“And yet you continue to seek solace.”

“Dwarves can also be a tad loud, if you recall.”

“Is that why you’re hiding here?”

“I am not _hiding_.” Bilbo protests, though yes, that is in fact exactly what he’s doing. “I’m just… taking a moment.”

“Right,” she says dryly. “Well if you’re quite done with your moment, your Company are quite anxious for your return. I believe there may even be a search party in the makings.”

Bilbo drags a hand across his face, muffling his groan. Honestly. _Dwarves._

“Certain members may even have gone so far as to coerce my help.” Tauriel adds.

“ _Certain members_?”

Tauriel hums noncommittally.

“Kíli?” Bilbo guesses slyly, because elves aren’t the only ones who can muster _silent and knowing_.

Tauriel looks away, but her smile is impossible to hide. It transforms her face into something much younger, much more carefree. “He is glad of our friendship, but resents I get to monopolise your company.”

Bilbo laughs at that. “And I suppose the fact that I’m monopolising _your_ company as well has nothing to do with it?”

The faintest blush creeps across Tauriel’s cheekbones. Ha.

“Well don’t let me keep you,” he saves her from replying, because Bilbo may tease her but he’s not completely merciless. He waves a hand airily. “You can tell Kíli I’ll be by later, to check on his lungs and Fíli’s leg again.”

There, at least, Bilbo has been able to make himself useful. The boys are healing well, but it’s a slow process. Fíli’s leg was broken in several places, and his head had taken a serious blow from the fall, temporarily impairing his vision and balance. Kíli’s wound is thankfully no longer infected thanks to Tauriel’s intervention, but it too would take time to heal. Most nights find Bilbo darting between their bedsides under Óin’s instruction, and since the boys had woken up they had been eagerly pressing Bilbo for news of the outside world, themselves being confined to the tent.

Lost in his own thoughts, it takes Bilbo several moments to realise Tauriel has yet to move.

“About that,” she says, and then just. Stops.

The clumsiness of it is so _un_ -elvish it makes Bilbo perk up warily. “Tauriel?”

“Kíli… may have been mentioning some difficultly breathing when he sits up.”

“He’s _sitting up_?” Bilbo says sharply. “Since when? Who let him do that? Is Óin there?”

“I don’t—”

“No wait, it doesn’t matter. Come on, show me.” Bilbo edges out from his temporary nook of sanctuary and gets stiffly to his feet. “I’ll not have Kíli messing up all our hard work by pulling his stitches and bleeding out.”

“Now who’s being overdramatic?” Tauriel murmurs, but follows him all the same.

Bilbo’s worry and ire towards the dwarf prince gets him as far as outside the tent before he falters, his resolve wavering in the face of _other_ occupants of the tent who might be awake. It’s barely a split-second pause, but Tauriel’s sharp eyes don’t miss a thing.

“Their King currently sleeps,” she adds, softly, and really, that elf is far too observant for her own good.

Bilbo offers her a weak, grateful smile, and steps the rest of the way inside.

“Bilbo!” Kíli cries joyfully from his cot the second he enters. “ _Finally_. Where have you been? It’s been _days.”_

“I was here last night, as you are well aware.” Bilbo gripes, but he’s smiling despite himself; Kíli’s delight is infectious. His mood relaxes further when a quick glance at Thorin’s bed assures him the king is, in fact, asleep.

“Yes, but it’s morning now, and you’re a nighttime phenomenon.” Fíli points out, as though that’s an entirely reasonable thing to say. Bilbo both envies and despises his ability to come out with things that should sound stupid and yet somehow make inarguable, perfect sense.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bilbo says anyway, and moves toward Kíli, who is indeed sitting up. “Now what’s this I hear about lungs? And _sitting?”_

Kíli's cocksure grin turns a tad sheepish, but before Bilbo can get to him another voice interrupts.

“Is that Bilbo?” Bofur asks, appearing in the entrance of the tent and beaming at him. “Kíli, you managed to get him in the tent! How much does Nori owe you?”

Bilbo turns to stare incredulously at Kíli, who squirms.

“So I suppose that bit about your wound taking a turn for worse was a complete fib, was it?”

Tauriel is silently laughing at him, the traitor. Kíli just pouts, unrepentant. “We missed you.”

“I’m here _every night!”_

“Maybe we just want you here when we’re actually awake for it,” Fíli chips in, and Kíli nods.

Bilbo fights the urge to bang his head against something. Ridiculous. His dwarves are _ridiculous._ “You could have just _asked,_ ” he says, exasperated.

The brothers exchange an unreadable look.

“We may have also thought you were avoiding us.” Kíli confesses, suddenly shifty-eyed and small in his cot, and if Bilbo didn’t already feel like the worst person ever, he certainly does now.

He lets out a great sigh, crouching down between their two cots and taking both their hands. He can’t exactly tell them the _real_ reason he’s been avoiding the tent — namely, his hopeless feelings for the dark haired dwarf thankfully fast asleep on the other side of it — but in the least he can reassure them of this.

“My dear boys. I can _promise_ you it’s anything but. I’ve just been busy is all.”

“Busy getting friendly with elves?” Fíli challenges.

“Among others,” Bilbo allows evenly, not in the slightest cowed. “Most of them are perfectly lovely, I’ll have you know. I enjoy talking with them, and it can’t hurt make friends right now.”

“Why do you need _more_ friends?” Kíli asks petulantly.

“I don’t see why you need to talk to anyone else,” Fíli grumbles almost in unison.

The boys feel under-loved because Bilbo is not behaving like an over-possessive dwarf. Yavanna save him. Bilbo rolls his eyes.

“If I _hadn’t_ ,” he says patiently, “how would I know that the elves sense a nasty blizzard incoming by the end of the week, that the men’s hunting parties came back empty yesterday and they’re nearly out of food, that Thranduil’s stalling, keeping to his tent receiving only his son and occasionally Bard, and that Dáin refuses to parley with either of any of them until Thorin is on his feet again?”

Fíli looks impressed, momentarily distracted. “You’ve spoken to Dáin?”

“Not at all. I’ve had some lovely chats with a dwarf named Lori though, whose brother is on Dáin’s retinue, and _he_ overheard some rather loud opinions on the subject of leadership passing to anyone but Thorin. Said Lord of the Iron Hills seems disturbingly happy at the prospect of getting into a preemptive fight to defend Thorin’s right to kingship. I believe there was even a chair thrown on one occasion.”

Both boys crack up, successfully pulled out of their strange sulk. Bilbo squeezes their hands all the same.

“Look. Whatever I may or may not be doing, I can promise you it’s the same as everything else I’ve done these past few wonderful months of peril and insanity, which has been with the primary concern of protecting _you_. And Thorin. And the rest of the Company. You utter loons.”

“Oh.” Kíli ducks his head just too late to hide his grin. It’s unfairly adorable.

“So you’re not leaving then?” Fíli presses.

Bilbo stares at him. And stares some more.

“ _Leaving_?” He repeats. Then he replays their conversation, and suddenly a lot more makes sense. Bilbo feels like an idiot for not catching on sooner, but then, his dwarves are evidently idiots too. “Goodness no, are you mad? I’ve crossed however many miles, faced dragons, orcs, goblins, spiders, and _barrels_ for you lot without packing up and going home _—_ what makes you think getting friendly with a few men and elves is going to change anything between us?”

Bilbo narrows his eyes at their identical guilty expressions, confirming his suspicions. “That’s what you were all thinking wasn’t it? That’s why everyone’s been fretting about me wandering off: you thought I was getting ready to _leave_.” Bilbo shakes his head in utter incredulity. “You foolish, ridiculous dwarves. Exactly how many mad feats of life-saving heroics do I have to perform before you understand? I’ve grown far too fond of you all to drop everything and run off now. You are my dearest friends, my family in all but name. As if I would abandon you now. Honestly. _Ridiculous_.”

Fíli looks a bit dazed from Bilbo’s outburst. Next to him, Kíli's smiling so widely it has to be hurting his cheeks.

Then there’s a small sniffle from behind him, and Bilbo turns slowly to see what looks like _every member_ of the Company crowded around the entrance of the tent (which, what, when did they even get there?), evidently having heard the whole thing.

“Oh Valar,” Bilbo manages weakly.

“You regard us as kin?” Balin says into the silence, looking just shy of weeping. Unlike Dori and Bofur next to him, who are both openly weeping. The others are sporting various kinds of earnest grins. Even Dwalin, who Bilbo didn’t even know his face could _make_ that expression.

“I…” he stammers, “well, yes, of course, I —”

Whatever he’s about to say next is lost as Bilbo finds himself crushed in the middle of a group hug clearly designed to choke the life out of him.

“Alright _alright_ , let me go you ridiculous lot —”

“We love you too, Bilbo!” Bofur says tearfully, bringing him arm-fully into a smothering embrace, and Bilbo squawks as his head gets shoved into what he thinks is Bombur’s armpit. He wriggles, attempting to escape the dwarf-pile to no avail.

“No, come on, that enough, _enough,_ confusticated dwarves— no, you know what, I’ve changed my mind, this is a terrible idea, I should murder you all and go home right now, where there’s peace and quiet and no dwarves trying to kill me with enraged affection —”

He cuts off with a yelp when someone hoists him up high into the air.

“Our new baby brother!” Glóin crows, drowning his protests out, and Bilbo winces.

“Hush, you’ll wake Thorin!” He hisses. “Glóin, _put me down this instant._ Fíli, Kíli, little help? _Tauriel_?”

The boys just grin at him from their cots, and Tauriel is actually laughing at him out loud now. His friends are _useless_.

“ _Óin?_ ” Bilbo pleads, and thank Mahal there’s one sensible one among them, because the healer chuckles, extracts himself from the scrum at length, and starts bodily pulling dwarves off him one by one.

“Aye, Master Baggins has the right of it. This is my tent, and they’ll be no disturbing my patients. Come on, Bilbo will still be here later. Out with you. Come on.”

He starts shooing them out. Óin is Bilbo’s new favourite. It’s official.

“ _Save_ me from over-emotional dwarves,” Bilbo mutters once they’ve all trundled out happily, but he can’t quite keep the affection from his face. “What in good green earth was that all about?”

“It’s a dwarf thing,” Kíli supplies, very unhelpfully.

Bilbo arches an eyebrow strenuously. “Meaning…?”

“You’ve been considered family for a while now,” Fíli admits. “You _act_ like family. You protect and defend us and look out for us, even though you’re just… you’re not… like, in the mountain: everyone else was so busy worrying about the gold, but you were one who noticed Thorin wasn’t eating, and sleeping, and you made sure Kíli was alright and healing properly, and that we all had somewhere to sleep. You took care of us.”

“It’s a dwarf thing,” Kíli says again. “You earned our respect by acting like kin, and even more so by doing it as a hobbit.”

“And now you’ve acknowledged it in return,” Fíli continues. “Dwarves consider chosen families as valid as any born into. To name someone kin who is not blood-related is one of the boldest declarations of loyalty and affection a dwarf can make, second only to courtship and equal to a pledge of fealty.”

“But of _course_ I consider you all family,” Bilbo says, bewildered, “how could I not, after all we have been through? Why should that still come as a surprise?”

Kíli’s beaming again, and Fíli just shakes his head, amused.

“You’re one of us now, Bilbo. You might as well accept it.”

“And the inevitable outpourings of aggressive dwarfish affection that come with it,” Kíli adds.

“And if you _do_ leave us for a bunch of pointy-eared woodland sprites, I’ll kill them,” Bofur says cheerfully out of _nowhere_ , somehow managing to have escaped Óin’s shepherding.

Bilbo jumps half a foot in the air, clutching his chest. “Bofur, you _confounded—”_ He stops, mouth going slack with bewilderment when he spots him. “Are you… are you hiding under Thorin’s _bed?!”_

“Don’t tell Thorin,” he says.

At which point of course Óin chooses that moment to reenter the tent.

He stops at the sight of Bofur’s head and shoulders sticking out from under Thorin’s cot. He stares at Bofur. Bofur glances sideways at Bilbo.

“Bilbo.” He stage-whispers. “Bilbo. Quick. Help me.”

“You! _Out!”_ Óin swoops in, brandishing his ear trumpet like a war axe.

Bofur ups and _legs_ it across the tent, and for the next few moments all Bilbo hears is the sound of Bofur’s ungainly yelp, Fíli and Kíli’s hysterical laughter merging with his own, and Óin’s stomping footsteps chasing Bofur out of the tent.

“Oh, but it feels good to laugh,” Bilbo gasps when he can catch his breath again. “Honestly, I’m astounded Thorin has managed to sleep through all that.”

For he has: the king is still in the exact position he had been when Bilbo entered — flat on his back for the sake of his injuries, his head smushed to one side as though he wants to curl up, breaths deep, eyes shuttered, lashes whispering across his skin.

In the brief moment that he’s staring at Thorin, Bilbo misses the knowing glance that Fíli and Kíli share.

“Yes, remarkable,” Fíli says dryly. “Given how light Uncle usually sleeps.”

It could be his imagination, but Bilbo swears he sees the line of Thorin’s shoulders tense up.

“You should talk to him,” Fíli continues, in that same, far-too-casual voice. “Come by some time when he’s awake.”

Bilbo hums distractedly, a nice ambiguous noise that he had picked up from Gandalf, more focussed on keeping half an eye on Thorin than responding. Is his breathing quite as steady as it was before?

“ _Please_ talk to him.” Kíli near-whines. “Uncle Thorin would throw himself in front of a rampaging warg for you.”

“Thorin would throw himself in front of a rampaging warg for _fun_ ,” Bilbo corrects darkly.

Oh, he _definitely_ sees Thorin twitch this time.

Why on earth would Thorin pretend to be asleep, though? It makes no sense.

That is, unless Thorin is just as keen to avoid him as he is.

“I’ll see if I can come by tomorrow,” Bilbo says vaguely, still frowning at the (not so?) sleeping dwarf. In the background, he clocks Óin returning, looking faintly satisfied, and there’s no sign of Bofur. Who knew Óin could be so terrifying?

Then again, that gives him an idea.

Bilbo raises his voice just loud enough for Óin to hear. “But for now, Kíli, don’t think I’ve forgotten that little stunt you and Tauriel pulled getting me here, and don’t think I’m going to overlook the fact that you’re _sitting_ _up_ , despite _clear_ instructions not to. Care to explain that to me?”

For someone supposedly hard of hearing, Óin has an uncanny ability to catch any nonsense going on where his patients are concerned.

_Revenge is sweet_ , Bilbo thinks, as Kíli’s face drops comically, and Óin stalks towards the prince over the sound of Fíli’s startled laughter.

If Thorin’s sleeping expression looks a little softer round the edges after that, Bilbo is wise enough not to mention it.

* * *

Things might have gone on like this indefinitely, with Bilbo avoiding Thorin in an effort to hide his confused feelings and Thorin either misinterpreting his behaviour or deliberately choosing to retreat into the most obvious reason that it was _his_ actions that had caused Bilbo to stay away, if it hadn’t been for Thorin’s foot.

In light of other injuries and all the chaos, the hole in Thorin’s foot slips by unnoticed — namely because Thorin doesn’t mention it. No one thinks to look for it, and Thorin doesn’t raise it in his curt summation of the fight with Azog, so it goes untreated for the week following the battle before Bilbo stumbles across it.

He slips in whilst Thorin and the boys are asleep as he usually does, checking his bandages and his temperature, adjusting the furs to make sure he’s warm enough, and that’s when Bilbo spots the blood. Dark and rust coloured, staining the canvas material at the bottom of Thorin’s cot.

Frowning, Bilbo cranes his neck and draws back the furs a little further as he tries to see where it might have come from, and as he does so he ends up accidentally nudging Thorin’s boot in the process.

Thorin swears, sudden and coarse, and Bilbo nearly jumps out of his skin.

“ _Thorin,”_ Bilbo gasps over his thundering heart. “ _Eru Ilúvatar_ above, you _scared_ me! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you—”

“You didn’t,” Thorin says, then freezes, panic momentarily flickering over his expression. “I mean, I was merely…”

“What is that?” Bilbo interrupts, his voice dropping a cold octave.

Thorin follows his gaze, looking relieved at the subject change. “Oh, that. During the fight with Azog he stabbed me through the foot from beneath the ice.”

“He did _what?!”_ Bilbo near yelps, and sure enough, now that he looks closer he can see where Azog’s blade must have pierced the top of the boot. Valar above, it had cleaved straight through. “Thorin, why in Eru’s name hasn’t this been looked at?”

Thorin stares at him like he had forgotten Bilbo was an idiot. “I expect Óin had more pressing matters to attend to. Like, I suppose, the mortal _stab wound_ in my chest.”

“But…” Bilbo flounders, gesturing helplessly, “but feet are _important.”_ Thorin just blinks at him, uncomprehending, and Bilbo goes on, disbelieving he’s actually having to explain this, “for well, walking and… and fighting and generally _existing_ and they are _fiendishly_ complicated anatomically and now you’re telling me that Azog just _drove his filthy orchish blade_ right through it and — _Mahal_ Thorin have you even taken your shoes off since the battle?”

“No,” Thorin says, deadpan, “because it’s cold.”

“Because it’s…” Bilbo gapes at him.

Thorin lifts an eyebrow. His expression is slack with curious bemusement, but there’s a twitch going on at the corner of his mouth that looks suspiciously like he’s fighting a smile.

"It’s fine, Master Burglar.” Thorin assures him, a tad dismissively. “Dwarves are a hardy folk, difficult to wound and built to endure. We can weather hurts far better than any other race. This trifling stab wound will heal on its own soon enough. There is no need to trouble our healers for such a small thing when there are others who are in far greater need.”

“I’m sorry, do you want to be able to walk again?” Bilbo snipes, and this is easier, this is familiar, falling back into earlier patterns of irritated bickering and butting heads rather than the confusing warmth and awkward shyness that had characterised their exchanges since the battle. “Do you want to limp for the rest of your life? Or have to remove the limb entirely because of your stubborn pigheadedness? No. This is ridiculous. You’re clearly not thinking straight. I’m getting Óin.”

_“Nê!”_ Thorin barks suddenly. His expression darkens into a scowl. “You’ll do no such thing.”

“Thorin, for goodness sake —”

“I told you, it’s _fine_. I do not require a healer—”

“How do you _know?_ You haven’t even looked at it!”

“There’s no need —”

“You might have… _frostbite_ , it could be _infected_ —”

“It’s not infected.”

“But—”

“I said _leave it_ , Bilbo!” Thorin snarls, and Bilbo just… snaps.

He knows Thorin is stubborn, knows that for all his kindness and courage and immense ability to care he can also be a cantankerous, headstrong _moron_ who lashes out at the slightest proclivity, but honestly, this is ridiculous. It’s been almost non-stop terror and struggle and discomfort over the past few days, and Bilbo knows he’s supposed to be trying to keep his distance, knows Thorin probably has a semi-coherent reason behind his surliness and _knows_ Bilbo is probably the _last_ person that should be pressing this, but this — this can’t wait, because he may not be a healer but there’s no way in all of Arda he’s going to just leave this be.

“No, I will not,” Bilbo says with a calm that surprises them both, and resolutely closes the last few steps of distance between them.

It’s a sign of how done he is with this entire situation that even though Bilbo knows there’s no moving Thorin if he doesn’t want to be moved, he still tries to tug him into swivelling round. What’s perhaps more surprising is that Thorin lets him. Albeit, he’s eying Bilbo warily with a fair amount of confusion, and any other time the way he clutches at the furs covering him would be funny, but Thorin still allows himself to be nudged and prodded into a sitting position so that his legs now hang over the side of the cot.

“No,” Bilbo stresses, just in case Thorin missed it the first time, and bends down to study what he’s dealing with.

"No?" Thorin repeats, sounding honestly baffled.

Bilbo just glares at him before turning back to the bloody mess of a shoe. He’ll have to cut the boot away to get at the wound. There’s no way that he can remove it without hurting Thorin further, possibly aggravating the injury. Yes: cutting will do fine. Without further ado, his legs fold and he plants himself on the floor with a faint huff, wincing at his tired muscles. He fumbles around tiredly for a moment before finding the dagger Dwalin had given him a few days ago _(‘just in case any of these new friends of yours get any funny ideas’)_.

"Bilbo, what are you doing?" Thorin asks, a tad exasperatedly, but he at least isn’t moving away, so that’s something.

"Foot," Bilbo demands, beckoning, and wonders a bit dazedly when his usual loquacity had abandoned him for monosyllabic grunts.

“But what are—”

“ _Hush_ ,” he commands irritably. “If you refuse to let the healers deal with this, then I’ll just have to look at it myself, because Yavanna knows that you won’t.”

Thorin’s giving him a familiar look: the blank, hilariously flummoxed one where Bilbo has caught him wildly off guard, and he’s undecided yet as to whether his discomfiture should evolve into anger or not. It’s a good face. Bilbo’s missed that face.

“You would do that?”

“I _would_ ,” Bilbo emphasises, a bit drolly, “if you’d just lift your foot up a bit. Honestly.”

Dark eyes measure him wordlessly, keen despite the pain. Then Thorin lifts his foot, and Bilbo doesn’t wait to question the sudden compliance. He slides closer, cupping the heel of Thorin’s foot gently in one of his palms, and begins the careful process of cutting the mangled boot away. Dwarvish steel slices easily through the ruined leather, and before long there’s enough room to ease the boot off without jarring the limb. His hand threads up to hold Thorin’s calf, steadying it as the shoe comes away.

Then Bilbo sees the damage.

“Oh, Thorin,” Bilbo exhales, his breath leaving him weakly, misery gutting him to the core even as his own feet throb in sympathy. “Your poor foot…”

“My feet are _fine,_ Master Burglar.” Thorin insists stiffly, establishing the distance back between them with the formal address, but Bilbo pays it no heed. He keeps his hand on Thorin’s calf, staring hollowly at the wound.

It’s not fine, not at all. There’s blood everywhere. Its clotted and dried in blackish veins all over the pale skin, and even as Bilbo watches, it wells from the savage tear in the centre of Thorin’s foot. No — not a tear, a _hole_. Azog’s blade had pierced straight through it.

Bilbo closes his eyes for a moment, feeling dizzy. “I have to go to Óin with this.”

_“No.”_ Thorin all but spits, and Bilbo looks up at him, startled out of his queasiness, already sucking in a breath for his tirade about carelessness and stupid, bullheaded _arrogance,_ but Thorin presses on, his voice catching on a rawer note —

“Bilbo please, Óin… he’s _exhausted,_ he’s working himself into a stupor as it is, and there are _so many_ in need of help and too few healers to attend them all. It is they who need his attention right now — Fíli and Kíli among them, and I cannot — _I_ brought this war upon them, and I _will not_ take away any time or effort that would be spent on keeping them alive. I can’t — please, Bilbo. I can’t…” Thorin breaks off, his voice cracking. “I can’t be the cause of any more death.”

He closes his eyes briefly, dragging in shallow breaths through his nose, and Bilbo is rendered utterly speechless, his hand on Thorin's calf suddenly too inadequate.

Bilbo should have known there was some disgustingly noble and selfless reasoning behind all the regal pouting and wilful obstinance.

“Alright,” he says at last, quietly. “Alright. I won’t fetch Óin, but you must let me look at it. Let me clean it up a little at the very least.”

Thorin's eyes fly open, as if that's the last thing he'd expected to hear. “Why?” He breathes, sounding aghast that Bilbo would even dare.

Bilbo’s eyebrow raises a notch, momentarily struck with complete incredulity at the question. _Because, in case it escaped your notice, you are in fact bleeding everywhere? Because I don’t like to see you in pain? Because whatever part of me that’s still a semi-respectable hobbit is screaming incoherently at the state of your foot right now? Because I’m sick of feeling useless in the face of the suffering all around us?_

“Can’t have our King limping around forever now, can we?” He says, with forced lightness, distantly alarmed at his own temerity. “That wouldn’t do at all. Besides, I gather your cousin Dáin has already taken the position of eccentric one-legged monarch, and he doesn’t seem the magnanimous type.”

Thorin’s gaping at him again, but he isn’t protesting, which is probably about as much permission as Bilbo’s going to get.

“Stay,” he orders, pointing a finger warningly at Thorin as he backs up. “I’m going to see if I can find some hot water.”

Miraculously, Thorin does actually stay put until he returns. He’s customarily taciturn, resident scowl in place, as Bilbo kneels back at his feet with the basin of water and cloth, which suits Bilbo just fine because Bilbo… Bilbo really hasn’t thought this through. He tries, he really does, to consider it clinically and professionally but _Valar,_ had he really just offered to _tend_ to the King's _feet?_

Never mind the brazenness of it from Thorin’s perspective; touching another’s feet was considered markedly intimate by hobbit standards. Yavanna, even _talking_ about one’s feet was deemed a touchy and somewhat mortifying subject. It would be akin to touching a dwarf’s braids, or an elf’s ears. Far more than a mere breach of personal space or privacy, it’s a privilege usually only shared between lovers.

And Thorin, being neither a hobbit nor one well acquainted with their ways, doesn’t have the first inkling as to what it means.

Then again, maybe that’s actually for the best. Bilbo had done a fine job of repressing his hopeless feelings thus far, but explaining _this_ might just be pushing it, particularly as it’s not entirely insincere and hardly the worst thing Bilbo has fantasised about and he can’t — he _can’t_ ruin this, whatever this is, this tentative bridge stretching between them… he can’t jeopardise it, not when it’s all still so fragile.

Yes, Bilbo resolves firmly, better that Thorin never find out.

“Master Baggins, are you well?” Thorin’s rumbling voice cuts through his mental tirade, and Bilbo abruptly realises he had been glaring at Thorin’s foot silently for several minutes.

He flushes. “Quite well, yes, just fine,” he babbles, yanking all the precious herbs he’d found out of his pocket and setting them on the pallet, before reaching for the…

Water. Where did he put the water? He fetched some, didn’t he? He must have done. It was right here.

"Something the matter?”

“Blast it, I’ve misplaced the…" He blinks at the basin of water that Thorin holds out for him.

"You told me to hold it,” he supplies, when Bilbo just gawps at him like an idiot.

“Ah.” He says brilliantly. Basic articulation. Why did it insist on eluding him?

Bilbo bites his lip, and places the basin beneath the offending appendage, fully aware he’s stalling now.

_Get it together, Bilbo, come on._ He thinks crossly. _You faced a dragon. You killed spiders and outwitted elves and rode an eagle. You can clean one dwarf’s bloody foot._

He keeps up a similar mantra as he soaks the bit of cloth and begins to carefully clean away the blood.

_Think of something else. Trolls trying to eat you. The Goblin King’s singing. The shrill tones of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins whining about inheritance…_

Back and forth the rag goes, teasing away the filth of battle in long, gentle sweeps from Thorin’s ankle to the arch of his instep. It’s undeniably awkward at first. Thorin isn’t exactly a model patient even when willing, all stiff and twitchy and grumbling, and Bilbo’s having a minor aneurysm trying not to give away that what he’s doing is essentially foreplay by hobbit standards, and the ache of mutual guilt and betrayal still tangles between them, unspoken, like a dark and terrible knot.

After a few minutes though, a companionable silence cautiously settles around them. It’s funny; over the course of their journey Bilbo had grown used to the boisterousness of dwarves, their passion and straightforwardness and complete lack of subtlety in all matters, yet he’d always managed to find quiet with Thorin. Sitting in silent contemplation on the edge of camp or riding side by side; velvet soft conversations in the forest when the day was in the final moments of the sunset and the sky wrapped Thorin in gentler colours; a deep and subtle silence about the world as the snow twists down around their meagre campfire. Sharing a moment to catch their breath, to not have to be anything more or less than what they were.

That familiar sense of peace stretches around them, gentle and unassuming. Slowly, so slowly he hardly notices it happen, Bilbo feels the tension leak out of Thorin, dissipating with every movement of Bilbo’s hands. Thorin’s breathing starts to even out, steadying in tandem with Bilbo’s ministrations, and when Bilbo risks a glance up, he sees the king’s eyelids have dipped to half mast. The haggard pain on his face has eased a bit. His shoulders have lost some of their rigidity. His hands rest limply on his lap, uncurled from their empty fists. He looks uncharacteristically content, stripped back and more at ease than he has done since, well, Bilbo can’t actually remember.

The effect is strangely meditative, and if Bilbo wasn’t so flustered with the impropriety of it all, he might have found the whole thing relaxing himself.

He consoles his own lack of tranquility by absorbing himself completely with his task. He has to empty and refill the basin twice before the water finally runs clear, and then there’s the medicinal herbs he had found to crush up and apply to fight off infection, and then the fresh strips of linen to bind —

Thorin’s foot jerks. He makes a small noise, a harsh, startled inhale through his nose, and Bilbo freezes, horrified that in the midst of his fretting and delicate hobbit sensibilities he had hurt Thorin without realising.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, aghast. “Was it too tight? Did I…?”

“Tickles,” Thorin mutters gruffly.

Bilbo stares at him, task momentarily forgotten, mouth slack with bewilderment.

Then he starts to giggle.

“I had not realised my discomfort was so amusing to you,” Thorin says stiffly as Bilbo continues to laugh, splashing the water as he places a hand down to curl over helplessly. _Tickles._

“No, no,” Bilbo wheezes, flapping a hand at him ineffectually. “I’m sorry, I’m stopping, I’m...” He looks up at Thorin’s dark scowling face, trails off, and then cracks, dissolving back into hysterical laughter.

Thorin scowl has now evolved into the full Oakenshield Thundercloud Glare. He starts to try and shuffle away.

“No, wait, hold on,” Bilbo tries again, grasping Thorin’s knee instinctively to stop him, not noticing how the dwarf instantly stills, eyes widening. It takes three false starts before he can continue without losing it again. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I was worried, that I’d hurt you, and it was the tension, all the buildup… it was unexpected.” Bilbo sucks in a deep breath, still battling a grin at Thorin’s stoic, unimpressed expression, but just about manages to reign in his mirth. “Forgive me. I did not realise your feet were, um, ticklish.”

Thorin eyes him suspiciously, as though he’s about to start laughing again. Bilbo presses his lips tightly together and tries to look solemn. From the resigned look on Thorin’s face it’s likely he doesn’t succeed.

“Are Hobbit feet not then?” Thorin asks as Bilbo bends back to his task, mainly to hide his barely stifled sniggers.

“Hmm? Not what?”

“…Ticklish.”

Bilbo bites his cheek to keep from smiling. “Not as such, no. Our feet are sensitive, but much hardier than other folk. They have to be, what with our distaste for footwear.”

He wriggles his bare feet pointedly, and tries not to feel self-conscious when Thorin stares at them for a long moment.

“Are they not cold?”

Bilbo snorts at the notion. “Fret not, Mister Oakenshield. It takes harsher terrain than this to bother a hobbit’s feet.”

Thorin just hums thoughtfully in answer. Bilbo distracts himself by tying the ends of the makeshift bandage around Thorin’s foot.

“There,” he says triumphantly. “Now I’m no expert, mind you, but I’d garner you shouldn’t put weight on it for a while if you know what’s good for you. You’ll need to keep it elevated to reduce swelling, and I’ll have to change the bandages a few more times, make sure it’s not infected, but other than that… I’m hoping you’ll heal up just fine. Not that I wouldn’t still recommend getting an _actual_ healer to look at it, but well. Yes. There you go.”

He looks up to find Thorin staring at him again — one of those other looks he only witnesses every so often. That of soft, unguarded wonder, as if he sees Bilbo and can't quite believe he's real.

The look makes Bilbo shift uncomfortably, feeling oddly defensive, unable to comprehend why Thorin would look at him like that, like Bilbo had done something unexpected and extraordinary.

“I'm not entirely useless you know,” Bilbo says, and he means for it to be in jest, but it comes out a little too small.

Thorin catches his arm as he stands. “If you truly think that, Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, then I have failed you unforgivably.”

As if Thorin hadn’t spent weeks at the beginning of their journey complaining how impotent Bilbo was.

“It’s alright,” Bilbo says, pursing his lips in a self-deprecating half-smile. “I know I’m just, well, a hobbit, and beside you, and beside these people —”

“Bilbo.” Thorin stops him. His eyes dart across Bilbo’s face, and an alarming devastation grows in them with each second. “You don’t understand.”

“I only meant…”

“You think any of this would have been possible without you? You think any of us would have lasted long enough to even _see_ the mountain, let alone reclaim it and survive the aftermath, if not for you?”

There’s a thrumming intensity to Thorin’s voice, thick with emotion, as though this is the most important thing he will ever say, and he’s desperate to get it right.

“You have proven yourself a thousand times over, and more so, for you were driven not by duty or obligation, for honour or hope of personal gain, but out of compassion, and loyalty, and kindness and utter sincerity. You… you are the best of us, Bilbo.”

Now it’s Bilbo’s turn to stare witlessly. It’s not fair, really. No one that surly and emotionally-stunted should be able to just come out with such heartbreakingly emotional professions like that on the fly. Thorin’s voice is uncharacteristically soft, close and rumbling in its intimacy, and then he has the gall to look like _that_ — all crinkly eyes and tender smiles, like Bilbo is something incredible. It makes Bilbo feel exposed, vulnerable, even more at a loss, because no one has ever looked at him like that. No one has ever described him in such terms. It makes something flutter in his chest, leaving him oddly breathless.

Thorin must misread his stunned silence though, because Bilbo sees the light in his eyes gutter and dim.

“Of course, I know I have given you every reason lately to doubt your worth and my regard of you…”

“Oh stop that,” Bilbo says crossly, earning another startled look. “You are not using my delicate emotional state as another excuse to go off and brood into a self-destructive spiral, Mister Thorin Oakenshield. There’s been quite enough of that, I think.”

Thorin blinks at him, momentarily diverted. “I am not self-destructive.”

“You _removed_ all of your armour before you made a suicidal charge at an orc army with only twelve dwarves at your back. Tell me honestly that was with the expectation of making it back alive.”

Thorin’s mouth opens, and closes again. It chills Bilbo, because it’s one thing to guess at Thorin’s fatalistic apathy towards his own life, and another to see Thorin fail to deny it.

Thorin just humphs, continuing in a subdued voice. “Master Baggins, I merely wanted to apologise —”

“ _Thorin_ ,” Bilbo groans. “For the last time, there’s no need. I do not hold you to blame for the corruption of evil.”

Thorin’s expression doesn’t shift. “Explaining the cause does not exempt me from accountability—”

“No, but by that reasoning neither does explaining the rationale for _my_ actions exempt me from _my_ blame.”

“ _Your_ blame?” Thorin repeats, incredulous. “There is none to speak of, Bilbo — you were only trying to save us.”

“Yes, just as at the heart of it all, you were only trying to protect your people.”

“It is _not the same!_ ” Thorin growls, a damning crackle of thunder save for the edge in it, a mixture of hope, prematurely defeated, and desperation in the unhappy twist of his mouth, as though he understands what Bilbo is trying to do but can’t let himself believe it.

“I never said it was, but—”

“Our deeds are in _no way_ comparable.”

Yavanna above, they’re arguing about who’s more worthy of forgiveness now.

Bilbo seeks patience from the roof of the tent. “That’s not what I was trying to—”

“You did what needed to be done, what I _drove_ you to do.”

“Perhaps, but the reason is not the point—”

“You have done _nothing_ for which you need apologise—”

“Oh it’s _no good_ , Thorin!” Bilbo bursts out. Thorin finally shuts up at that, taken aback at the turn of Bilbo’s anger. “This… this perpetual _insistence_ that there’s nothing to forgive of the other yet then refusing to let go of our own guilt… it’s getting us nowhere.”

He takes a deep breath, tugging a hand agitatedly through his hair. “The way I see it, we both had our reasons for doing what we did, but in the end it doesn’t matter how those actions are rationalised because we _still did them._ We are all accountable for our own actions, even actions born from pragmatic reason, even actions born from trauma and sickness. Denying that and the hurt we have caused won’t solve this. Blanket forgiveness won’t solve this. All we can do is accept that we both broke each other’s trust, but that, well, maybe we can regain it. Maybe…”

He fumbles for the right words and finds himself deficient. He recalls the moments after the battle, looking out across a land marred and thinking that there must be something that survives, something that outlasts, something beyond all this hurt. “Maybe we can start over.”

“Start over,” Thorin breathes, and that’s not exactly what Bilbo means, but it’ll do.

Something to hope for. Something to start with. Rebuild and reforge anew, better than before, because forgiveness isn’t something that just _happens._ It isn’t one decision, one moment captured in time with the eclipse of epiphany. Forgiveness is something you have to choose, again and again, actively, freely. Forgiveness is something you earn, something you build, brick by tedious brick, out of the broken remains of hurt and loss and betrayal. Not the absolution of guilt, but the chance at a new beginning.

“Yes, yes that,” Bilbo says. He has to take a few seconds to breathe, which is rather difficult when Thorin is looking at him like that, the expression of reverence returning with wide eyes and slack, parted lips. This close, Bilbo can see every hue of blue in Thorin’s eyes, from thunderclouds to sea foam, and Bilbo must be tired, because the distance between suddenly seems dangerously small, the air humming like a plucked string, and it would be easy — _so_ easy to close it, to step forward between Thorin’s legs and catch those lips with his own —

“Bilbo?” Thorin utters, and Bilbo abruptly snaps out of it in a flush of heat and a stern reminder that Thorin would certainly not look upon him so kindly if he knew what Bilbo was thinking.

This is their chance at repairing the friendship they had; Bilbo _will not_ risk it all for the sake of his hapless crush. _Control yourself, Bilbo Baggins._

“Good. Right.” He says briskly, fleeing into the refuge of ingrained politeness and safer topics. “So I’ll be back to change your bandages again tomorrow, and we can work out a plan to get this sorted without troubling anyone who needn’t be troubled, and in the meantime you can go back to pretending you’ll recover solely through sheer force of stubbornness. Is that agreeable, oh Thorin son of Thráin?”

Thorin stares at him for a moment, eyebrows lifted, then Bilbo isn’t sure which one of them is more surprised when the king ducks his head and actually _snorts_. “I’ll have you know ‘sheer force of stubbornness’ is an ancient and highly esteemed dwarven remedy, Master Burglar.”

“Of course it — hang on, was that a joke?” Bilbo splutters, dumfounded. “Was that an actual attempt at a joke?”

Thorin just smirks at him, as though this isn’t genuinely the most surprising thing Bilbo has witnessed this past week. _Dwarves._ Bilbo shakes his head, scoffing his wordless exasperation, but he’s fighting a smile of his own all the time he’s gathering up his tools.

When he makes to leave, Thorin catches his sleeve again, halting him.

“Thank you.”

The gruff gratitude makes him flush. He doesn’t trust himself to meet Thorin’s gaze again without doing something inordinately stupid, so Bilbo just ducks his head, a tiny, genuine smile pulling helplessly at his lips, and only just about manages to fumble his way out afterwards without tripping over anything.

It’s not until he’s outside the tent that Bilbo realises he’s not only broken his pact to keep his distance, but has gone and inadvertently agreed to put his hands all over the king’s feet for the next few weeks. He buries his face in his hands and swears potently, ignoring a passing dwarf who leaps half a foot in the air at the sound.

_Oh, Bilbo Baggins, you are in_ **_so_ ** _much trouble._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All credit to MulaSaWala for the beautiful artwork! You can find it on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CEhAozoldrX/?igshid=1jba86c1rplb1


	2. Chapter 2

Thorin half expects Bilbo not to show the following day, half convinced that the whole thing had been a dream.

_“…What are you doing?”_

_“Foot.” Bilbo demands, and Thorin just stares at him, like maybe if he does it for long enough Bilbo’s behaviour will make sense._

_“But what are—”_

_“Hush._ _If you refuse to let the healers deal with this, then I’ll just have to look at it myself, because Yavanna knows that you won’t.”_

The force of guilt and betrayal still strangles the air between them; the two of them skirt around it, not daring to give it voice.

But then Bilbo stumbles across the injury he had taken cares to hide and snaps at him unthinkingly for the foolishness of it, and it’s so _familiar_ , so recognisable from months on the road, so reminiscent of their bickering before, that Thorin immediately embraces it. He parries back, offering petty arguments and grumbling complaints like an olive branch.

_"It’s fine, Master Burglar. Dwarves are a hardy folk, difficult to wound and built to endure. This trifling stab wound will heal on its own soon enough…”_

_“I’m sorry, do you want to be able to walk again? Do you want to limp for the rest of your life? Or have to remove the limb entirely because of your stubborn pigheadedness? No. This is ridiculous.”_

It’s the first time since the battle that Thorin hears Bilbo attempt his usual grouching. Thorin had watched Bilbo’s mask of ingrained politeness flake off during the journey as the hobbit gradually let down his guard and cast off the shell of social expectations; he hadn’t realised that mask had returned until he watched it drop now, over _feet_ no less, and he doesn’t understand why, but it’s the first time Bilbo is speaking like himself again and looking Thorin in the eye without flinching, and if letting him tend to his wound is what it takes to mend things with Bilbo then that is what Thorin will do.

(Granted, he may be a bit _confused_ at Bilbo’s insistence to wrap up his foot, but then, when has the hobbit ever made sense or done as he expected, and in any case it _does_ present Thorin with a convenient excuse to be close to him. Bilbo's presence is calming, especially the way he can reduce the direst of circumstances down to nothing more than a minor personal inconvenience, and his enduring disregard for the fact that Thorin is king is strangely freeing. Bilbo had always seen _Oakenshield_ before _Thorin, son of Thráin._

Then there’s the minor fact that Bilbo’s concern and care for him makes Thorin dare to believe that maybe he _hasn’t_ destroyed everything between them, and Thorin may be a creature of pain and ash and suffering but he’s also at the core of him a creature of hope, and he’s no stranger to hoping for desperate, unattainable things.)

Still, doubt creeps back in when Bilbo leaves, and as the following day stretches to night and Bilbo doesn’t show, Thorin begins to think that he has changed his mind.

In hindsight, a ludicrous thought. Really, Thorin should just learn to stop being surprised where Bilbo is concerned; not only because Bilbo has a track record of doing the exact _opposite_ of what Thorin expects, but because if there is one constant to the enigma that is Bilbo Baggins, it’s that whatever happens, he always seems to come back. Be it goblin tunnels or elven prisons or Thorin’s own madness, Bilbo _always_ comes back to him.

“Sorry, I’m late, I know,” Bilbo babbles in a hushed voice as he darts into the tent. “I was talking to Bard, and then Bofur caught me on my way here and wanted to know where I was going and I couldn’t think of an excuse fast enough, and then Bombur realised I hadn’t eaten, and… anyway. Here I am. The boys are asleep, yes? I figured you wanted to keep this under wraps. Why are you looking at me like that Thorin.”

Thorin isn’t sure what his face is doing, but he can feel the strain on it dissolving almost miraculously with every word Bilbo says, and there’s an unfamiliar pull in his cheeks that feels a bit like a smile.

“You came back,” he says.

Bilbo blinks at him, wide-eyed in the dark. “Well of course I came back,” he says, indignant. “Who else would save you from your own stupidity and make sure your foot doesn’t rot and fall off?”

 _Who else indeed._ No one else would venture to even call him out on said stupidity except for this strange little creature.

“I am in your debt,” Thorin agrees solemnly. “I leave my foot in your very capable hands.”

For some inexplicable and fascinating reason, that makes Bilbo blush right up to the tips of his ears.

“In my — hands.” Bilbo echoes, strangled. “Feet. Your feet. Yes.”

Thorin wonders if he’s just broken the hobbit.

“Master Baggins?”

Bilbo makes a small meep sound, looking flustered. “Mm. Nothing. Thinking. How is it? The ah…”

“…Foot?” Thorin supplies.

“Yes. That.” Bilbo coughs, flailing a little.

And this is the hobbit who brazenly marched up to a dragon. Thorin despairs of anything about Bilbo Baggins ever making sense.

“Fine,” he says, shrugging, despite how ever since he’d swung his foot over the side of the bed it had been throbbing something fierce, warring with the barbed pain in his chest.

A quick glance at Bilbo reveals that the hobbit has ceased his nervous fluttering: he’s _glaring_ now— a narrowed, dead-eyed look that silently encompasses every ounce of disbelief and judgment it’s possible to convey.

“It… twinges a bit.” Thorin amends.

“Which is the dwarven expression for ‘ _it bitterly hurts and I’m in untold agony’,_ I suppose?” Bilbo’s voice is acerbic, yet there is nothing but gentleness in the way he starts unwinding the makeshift bandage from yesterday. He continues without waiting for a response. “You’ve bled through the linen, but it’s not any worse as far as I can tell. Do you mind…?”

Bilbo makes a vague gesture, and Thorin realises he’s asking permission to touch. It seems a bit redundant to Thorin to have to even ask such a small thing, but he nods all the same.

Tender hands cradle the limb, steadying it as Bilbo eases the last bloodied strips of linen away.

It’s still strange to him that Bilbo is even comfortable being so near to him. Thorin expects Bilbo to be perfunctory – eager to be finished, to not spend any more time close to Thorin as he needs to — but as yesterday, Bilbo seems quietly content to take his time. He works with steady perseverance, his nose scrunching up occasionally with concentration. His hands are careful and patient, stemming the bleeding, rebinding the injury with a smattering of crushed herbs. At one point when Thorin winces at the sting of antiseptic in his wound, Bilbo’s thumb immediately sweeps over the inside of his ankle in silent apology, and he leaves it there, soothing circles against the skin. It’s probably just an absentminded reflex, in the way one might calm a wild animal, but it makes warmth settle in his chest all the same. Thorin sighs, lulled by the sensation, allowing his mind to drift.

 _“Maybe we can start over,”_ Bilbo had said yesterday.

Not demeaning or cheapening what they had done, but offering them a chance to move past it. A chance of forgiveness. Of unimaginable, incomprehensible grace.

_Maybe we can start over._

Thorin thinks of all the others he has wronged, of promises broken and lives forsaken and three races sat out there in the snow, and wonders whether they would give him the chance to start over as well. Wonders whether he would deserve it.

“There,” Bilbo murmurs after some time, his voice curiously rough, and Thorin blinks sleepily.

The throbbing pain in his foot has faded to a dull, pulsing complaint, and he can feel the comforting pull of fresh bandages binding it in place. Bilbo kneels at his feet, looking up at Thorin with tender eyes and a smile so small it might be missed if one had not spent months learning how to look for it.

He’s beautiful.

“You alright?” Bilbo asks, soft in the quiet of the tent.

Thorin studies the gentle lines of Bilbo’s face, the endlessly expressive features, lets himself fall in the calm steadiness in Bilbo’s eyes. He sees the immeasurable courage, the unselfish heart, the fierce protectiveness, the whole of him. Outside, the wind rages and billows against the tent drapes, but in here it’s nothing but quiet breathing and fragile words.

“Yes,” Thorin agrees, and he’s surprised to find he means it.

Bilbo’s smile grows.

 _“Maybe we can start over,”_ Bilbo had said.

And looking at Bilbo now, firelight tangled in his hair and contentment crinkling the corners his eyes, for the first time, Thorin thinks he might actually start to believe it.

* * *

It takes two more days of Bilbo’s bizarre clandestine visits to Thorin in the dead of night before Fíli and Kíli conclude that they _really_ need to work out a better plan than pretending to be asleep.

“It worked for Uncle,” Kíli points out in a whisper, wriggling on his cot to face his brother.

Fíli rolls his eyes so hard it makes him dizzy. “Uncle is an _idiot_ ,” he whispers back, though he checks for the umpteenth time that said Uncle is indeed _genuinely_ asleep this time. He’s snoring softly on the other side of the tent, so Fíli thinks they’re in the clear. “He and Bilbo are talking again, _finally_ , but they’re hardly going to talk about the things they _need_ to talk about when we’re in the tent. Even if we are doing the world’s worst impression of feigning sleep to give them some privacy.”

“I thought we were feigning sleep to eavesdrop on them.”

“Same thing.”

Kíli squints. “Is it?”

Fíli flaps a hand dismissively. “Point is, we need to give them some semblance of _actual_ privacy, so that they can talk properly and sort out this mess with the mithril, and clear everything up so that the both of them can stop pining and we can finally have some peace around here. And for all this to happen, we need to be out of this tent.”

“What mess with the mithril? Clear what up?”

It’s not so dark that Fíli can’t still level Kíli with a dead look. “The courtship? Bilbo and Thorin’s courtship? You enormous goof?”

“What’s wrong with their courtship?”

Honestly, Fíli despairs of his brother sometimes.

“You don’t think there might be a _tiny bit_ of uncertainty and awkwardness after Thorin proposed whilst in the throes of dragon sickness, then dangled him from the ramparts in the space of a few hours, and then, oh wait, nearly _died?”_

Kíli just shrugs. “They’re each other’s One’s. They’ll figure it out.” Then he brightens suddenly. “So _that’s_ what the two of them have been doing these past few days! Uncle Thorin’s courting Bilbo!”

“Yes, Kíli. It _hadn’t_ escaped my notice.”

“Right. Yeah. What with Thorin —” Kíli gestures vaguely about his face before settling on, “smiling.”

Fíli snorts before he can help it, and slaps a hand over his mouth. Both of them hold their breath, waiting to see if Thorin wakes. He doesn’t. They exhale synchronously.

“So what’s the plan?” Kíli whispers, nudging him. It feels exactly like being ten years old again, back when Kíli used to sneak into his bed after Dís had turned out the lights; two boys huddled under the covers, trying to smother their giggles as they planned their next bout of mischief. They’re not ten anymore, but his brother’s smile is the exact same as it was then: impish and bright-eyed, full of infectious, childlike excitement.

And despite recent events, his age, and his better judgment, Fíli feels a similar expression pulling at his face — not quite as familiar as it used to be, not since Thorin named him his heir and mischief had to give way to responsibility, but it feels right when it settles in place. It feels like him.

“Well first we have to convince Óin we’re well enough to leave.”

“How. Um. How are we going to do that?”

“Haven’t the faintest idea,” Fíli admits. “But we’ve got hours still until Bilbo comes by again, and nothing to do but think, so I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

“And then?”

Fíli gives up entirely on trying to suppress his grin now. His eyes gleam bright in the darkness.

“We are very graciously giving our illustrious leader and intrepid burglar the air of privacy. That doesn’t mean we can’t still keep one ear on what’s going on, though, does it?”

* * *

Dwalin approaches the healing tent to see nearly every member of the Company crowded around the outside of it with their heads craned inwards, not looking suspicious in the slightest. Some are even kneeling on the ground with their ears pressed to the gap under the fabric.

Dwalin fights the urge to slap his palm to his face. He’s so pleased that he agreed to sign onto such a dignified and respectable company.

“Mahal wept,” Kíli breathes. “Did he seriously just tell Uncle Thorin to _stop with his_ _eyebrows_?”

There’s a wave of sniggers and stifled laughter, followed by hissed demands for quiet as they go back to eavesdropping. Dwalin briefly considers acting his age and walking past them to bring Thorin their latest report as he’d initially intended.

Curiosity wins out. He ducks down next to Nori and puts his ear to the tent. Nori just smirks at him, and shifts to make room.

“… do stop _squirming_ ,” Bilbo’s voice drifts out from inside. “The sooner you keep still, the sooner this is all over, and then you can go back to scowling everyone into submission like I know you so enjoy.”

Fíli and Kíli giggle. Dwalin silently claps them both on the head, but he himself is biting his lips to keep from laughing. This is ridiculous. How exactly are they going to explain this if they get caught? And what in Arda is Bilbo _doing_ in there with Thorin?

“You know, it’s fascinating how you think that glaring at me in various different ways is a valid means of communication," Bilbo is saying now. “But it's not. I don't speak _angry dwarf stare_.”

Bofur chokes on air. He presses a hand over his mouth and nose, smothering his laugh. Next to him, Glóin is silently shaking, his head shoved into his elbow, and Ori genuinely looks like he’s going to pass out if he keeps holding it all in like that.

There’s a sigh from within that sounds like Thorin is bemoaning every decision he’s ever made that’s led him to being chastised by the hobbit. “You really don’t have to do this.”

“You expected me to get that from your _face_?” Bilbo replies, incredulous. Then — “See. And now you're doing it again. With the scowling. I’m sure that we’ve discussed this. I'm not even asking for much here, just a few words, maybe even a complete sentence now and then —”

“Just because _you_ have the desire to fill every silence with inane chatter doesn’t mean we’re all so verbosely inclined.”

“My goodness, Thorin, that was almost diplomatic! Did you strain something doing that? Because it seems like it must’ve hurt.”

Kíli _wheezes_. Dwalin’s face drops in utter astonishment. The stifled giggles around him hit a strangled, hysterical silence. All of them hold their breaths, but instead of the meltdown they expect, they’re met with… laughter.

Thorin is _laughing._ Deep, full-bellied chuckles that rumble out from the tent, warm and unfeigned. Dwalin’s half tempted to break cover there and then just to check that it’s actually _Thorin_ inside, and not some imposter, because the sound is so surprising. He doesn’t get the chance though, because Balin appears at this point, having managed to somehow sneak up on all of them. Everyone freezes, looking wildly guilty. The elder dwarf runs a stern eye over the scene, raising an eyebrow at Dwalin, who merely shrugs.

Then without a single word, Balin settles down between Fíli and Kíli (because this is _so_ much better than worrying about Erebor’s structural integrity and distributing food rations and making nice with former adversaries).

There’s another spurt of muffled laughter and frantic shushing.

“And what would a hobbit from the Shire understand of diplomacy?” Thorin is saying inside, sounding amused. _Amused_.

“More than you, evidently.” Bilbo replies pertly. “Your plan was to steal a _gem_ from a _dragon_. Forgive me if I doubt your powers of discretion and discernment.”

“Says the hobbit who purposefully antagonised a creature that could have used you as a tooth pick.”

“Mm. Not one of my brightest moments, I’ll admit. I mean who laughs at a dragon, honestly.”

Thorin’s the one laughing now though, _again_ , and Dwalin listens in genuine awe. This has to be a dream. Dwalin will not accept this as reality.

Bilbo’s voice changes then, shifting into more business-like tones. “Alright, now if you could just hold still, I’m nearly done—”

“I’m astounded you’ve managed to focus at all,” Thorin replies dryly, “what with your riveting commentary and ceaseless prattle.”

“Oh I’m sorry, would you prefer I opt for your way of the _silent_ and _brooding_?”

“I do not _brood_.”

“Thorin Oakenshield, I’m fairly sure that you cannot go five minutes without finding something to skulk off and stare meaningfully into the distance about.”

“I do not.” Thorin says again, impassive. “I merely occasionally take time out to silently consider everything I’ve done wrong in my life and the specific ways in which others have wronged me.”

“Then I am no burglar; I merely occasionally rearrange other people’s things to my advantage and without their permission.”

“Oh is _that_ what you’re doing currently?”

Dwalin’s mouth, if possible, drops even wider. Is. Is Thorin _teasing_? What in Mahal’s name is going on in there?

“ _Trying_ to,” Bilbo shoots back, sounding a tad strained. “If you would just _hold still—”_

“It _tickles_ —”

“I don’t _care_ —”

“But—”

“So help me, wounded or not, I will _sit on you_ if you don’t _desist_ —”

Thorin makes a growly noise. “I am King Under the Mountain—”

“You’ll be King Under My _Ass_ in a moment, Thorin Oakenshield—”

Dwalin loses it completely then, smushing his face into his arm as he tries and fails to muffle his guffawing laughter. All around him a good lot of the rest are similarly gone, doubled over in hysterics. Fíli and Kíli are rolling around on the floor gasping for breath. Bombur has collapsed backwards and Bofur has his head buried in Bombur’s belly, snorting helplessly, his head bouncing up and down as Bombur’s stomach contracts with the force of his laughter. Balin looks this close to toppling over he’s wheezing so much, trying to quiet his laughter through tears running into his beard.

“I’m sure you’ve all got a very good explanation for this,” Óin’s deadpan voice cuts through their gasps of laughter, and Dwalin looks up to see the healer eying them with pure exasperation. “And you can save it for our King. Come on. Away with you. Before I tell Thorin.”

They pull themselves together. Eventually.

They’ve almost quietened down the first time until Nori mutters “ _King Under My Ass”_ under his breath in a perfect imitation of Bilbo’s genteel tone, and everyone cracks up again. A few more minutes of hiccuping and helpless snorts later, they disperse in a befuddled mess, stumbling off to their various duties.

Dwalin concludes his report can wait for another time; even though he’s _dying_ to know what the two of them were doing in the tent, he doesn’t trust himself not to lose it again whilst in Thorin’s presence, giving away that they had been listening.

Still: he'd pay good money to know what Bilbo is saying now.

* * *

“… _There_ ,” Bilbo says, relinquishing Thorin’s foot. “Now honestly, was that so difficult?”

Thorin looks down at his re-cleansed, re-bandaged foot, and makes a small _humph_.

“Mm. Well done, that was almost coherent. Certainly an improvement on the silent glaring.”

Thorin glares at him on principle. Bilbo fights the urge to stick his tongue out back. Clearly Thorin is making him regress.

“I still _really_ wish you’d let me ask Óin about this,” he sighs as he starts clearing up, but Thorin is unwavering.

“If he knew, he’d drop whatever he was doing, probably at the expense of someone else.” Thorin points out calmly. “His responsibilities are far greater, and far more important, than my bloody foot."

“Óin wouldn’t see it that way,” Bilbo feels the need to point out. “He’d never forgive himself if he found out you were injured and he didn’t know about it.”

A small part of Bilbo agrees with Thorin’s logic, albeit grudgingly, but it feels wrong to make Óin’s choice for him.

“I know,” Thorin says. “That’s why we’re not going to tell him. Agreed?”

It’s endearing, and a bit exasperating, the way he tries so hard to make it sound like an order, but when Bilbo locks eyes with him he sees just how exposed Thorin looks all of a sudden, how tired and uncertain and overwhelmed.

“Alright,” he says eventually, and Thorin’s evident relief in the slump of his shoulders is worth any misgivings Bilbo has about the decision.

That’s when, of course, Óin himself enters the healing tent and makes straight for them. They both freeze in place.

“Thorin.” Óin greets, then, more surprised — “Bilbo.”

“Óin.” They say in unison.

He glances between them uncertainly at the position they’re in, Thorin perched on the side of the bed, Bilbo kneeling at Thorin’s feet. From where he’s standing, he can’t see Thorin’s foot, which is a small blessing.

“Is… everything alright, sire?”

“It’s perfectly fine.” Thorin says automatically. “We’re…” he tapers off, looking at Bilbo with mute panic. “Bilbo. Tell Óin what we’re doing.”

Bilbo gapes at him in betrayal. “We’re…” he flounders for a moment. “We’re looking for wood beetles.”

“Wood beetles.” Óin repeats blankly.

“Yes."

“…in the king’s bed?”

“The bed made of wood, yes.” Bilbo raps his knuckles lightly against the wood of Thorin’s cot, and Thorin cocks his head to the side next to it, face scrunched up as though listening.

Óin just stares at them both, mouth opening and closing in utter bafflement.

“Better safe than sorry,” Bilbo adds, assuming his best guileless expression. He’s a hobbit: they’ve got guileless down to a fine art.

Óin sucks in a breath. He lets it out. Then he turns around and walks straight back out again.

“Wood beetles,” Thorin repeats flatly once he’s gone.

Bilbo throws his hands up in the air. “What was I supposed to say? You’re the one who wants to keep it a secret. _You_ think up the excuse next time.”

Thorin just shakes his head, mouthing _wood beetles_ again with the oddest look on his face. He shifts back, levering himself with his arms to raise his legs back onto the bed. Though he tries to hide it, Bilbo can see the small effort costs him. Sweat beads on his forehead. Thorin’s breath rasps in his chest, and his face goes faintly ashen, taut with strain. He reaches forward for the furs, but at the pain that twists, sharp and sudden, in Thorin’s face, Bilbo stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Let me,” he says, and Thorin resists for all of two seconds before he sighs shakily, slumping back against the pillows as Bilbo grabs the covers for him. “You’ve been overdoing it,” he chides. Bilbo inwardly curses himself for not noticing sooner. “It’s going to take time to heal.”

“It’s been a week,” Thorin manages tiredly.

“Exactly. _It’s been a week_ since you nearly died. Dwarven constitution or not; you’re not going to be running around anytime soon.”

The low noise Thorin lets out is pure frustration. “Fíli and Kíli are granted leave to move around.”

“Fíli and Kíli were not mortally wounded by Azog.” Bilbo reminds him. He pauses. “Although honestly, I’m not entirely sure _how_ they managed to convince Óin to let them out.”

“They’re persuasive,” Thorin offers sullenly.

“Impossible to say no to, more like,” Bilbo concedes. He smooths down Thorin’s furs, feeling the king’s eyes follow him. “Give yourself some patience, Thorin. It’s okay to take the time to rest and recover.”

Thorin just shakes his head wordlessly. He looks exhausted, the kind of bone-deep weariness that hollows you out into a brittle shell. It’s a look Bilbo has seen before: that tired, defeated expression swathed in a shorn beard and stubborn unwillingness to admit that you’re drowning, that you’ve been submerged for so long you no longer know how to breathe air.

“I’ve never had that luxury,” Thorin murmurs, in a voice so quiet Bilbo thinks he’s not meant to hear it.

Bilbo feels like he’s just been stabbed, because of _course_ he hasn’t. Bilbo thinks of how Thorin was barely of age when Erebor was lost to Smaug, barely an adult when his grandfather led them all on a suicide mission to Moria, where he lost his grandfather and father and brother in the same battle and then suddenly Thorin has to be _King._ King, of a rootless and discarded race without a kingdom, yet somehow he manages to keep those people together and claw back a life for them with bloodied fingers and build them a new home somewhere else. And even then he isn’t able to stop, because there’s a homeland to reclaim and a hopeless longing in his heart and a quest that will take every last shred of himself that he has left. Thorin has never had the time to mourn, to heal and to recover, because he is so burdened by duty and obligation that there is no time left for himself, least of all the time to rest.

Thorin starts scratching at the skin around the stitches on his torso. Bilbo unthinkingly grabs his hand, lest the idiot infect his wound.

“Stop that,” he says thickly. “You’ll only make it worse.”

Logic and reason kick back into gear then, and Bilbo realises what he’s done. Perhaps Thorin is a bit off his game too though, because his reflexes aren’t fast enough to avoid the grip, and he pulls in a soft, surprised breath but doesn’t break free. His eyes flicker to Bilbo’s, tired, with a hint of that ever-present pain, but so blue — as blue as the sky just before dawn. Bilbo swallows, his own gaze darting down as Thorin involuntarily licks his lips.

He quickly lets go of Thorin’s hand.

“It’ll take time,” he repeats. “There’s no shame in letting yourself heal. Your kingdom will still be there for you when you get back.”

“And you?” Thorin asks.

Bilbo frowns, confused. “What?”

But there’s a fragile note to the question, and Bilbo thinks he hears what Thorin means.

_Will you still be there when I get back? When there are no more bandages to wrap, no more clandestine injuries to check on, nothing left to reclaim or rebuild and nothing to bind you to me, will you leave too?_

Instinctive reassurances hover on his lips, but they falter, stumbling over rolling hills and little rivers and dappled sunlight on the spines of his books. Swathes of grain rippling in the breeze beyond his window, the smell of loam and summer-baked earth in his garden, the party tree, the winding road to the market, the long-moulded curve of his father’s armchair.

Bilbo stammers, “I…”

“THORIN! They said ye were awake!” A loud, boisterous voice saves him, and Bilbo half-leaps away from Thorin just in time to see Dáin step into the tent.

There’s a small, frustrated sigh from behind him, but when Bilbo looks back Thorin is wearing a slight smile.

“I’ve been awake for days, cousin. What took you so long?”

“Aye, as if that healer of yours is letting anyone _near_ you at the moment,” Dáin grumbles. “Had to wear him down for days just to be allowed in. Seems adamant you need to rest and that everyone should leave you be.” Then he casts a speculative look at Bilbo. “ _Nearly_ everyone, anyway.”

Bilbo flushes under his scrutiny. “I. Um. Bilbo Baggins? At your service?”

Dáin’s gaze brightens with recognition, then drops immediately down to Bilbo’s collar. His grin widens, slow and horrifically knowing. “So _you’re_ the one who Thorin —”

“Enlisted as a Burglar, yes,” Thorin interrupts quickly, cutting him off. His face has set into that carved, stony blankness — the kind that comes out when he’s either whiting out in fury, or he’s panicking. Bilbo is betting it’s the latter. Something to do with whatever Dáin had been about to say.

(But what?)

In a movement so small Bilbo nearly misses it, Thorin makes a few, jerky hand motions that mean nothing to Bilbo, though he gets the vague sense there’s a _for Mahal’s sake, cease talking you moron_ somewhere in there. Their meaning is apparently not lost on Dáin. The other dwarf’s eyebrows shoot up straight into his fiery hair, and he looks between them curiously.

Bilbo is strongly starting to suspect he’s missing something here.

After a long few, incredibly awkward moments, Dáin snorts, shaking his head. Then confusing Bilbo even more, he turns to the hobbit, clasps a hand over his heart, and bows low.

“It’s an honour, Master Baggins.” He expresses sincerely. His eyes twinkle. “I hear you’re single-handedly responsible for the survival of this pack of miscreants.”

“I, well, I wouldn’t exactly say…”

“Outwitted a dragon, they say!”

“Hardly, I mean, Smaug did most of the talking really—”

“Brought Thorin to his senses, eh?”

Bilbo winces. Yavanna above, and he thought _Thorin_ was devoid of subtlety. “Ah…”

“Gave that elvish sprite a run for his money too, I hear, what with that work in the dungeons?”

“Stroke of luck, I assure you—”

“And then facing down that _filth_ Azog to defend my cousin’s neck!”

“Well I wasn’t exactly just going to sit there and _watch_ ,” Bilbo retorts hotly.

Dáin roars. He strides forward and claps Bilbo on the shoulder in a gesture that’s probably supposedly to be friendly but nearly sends Bilbo flying. “A friend of Durin indeed,” he professes warmly. His eyes flicker between him and Thorin again, that sly, knowing look returning. “Not interrupting something, am I?”

“Not at all,” Thorin replies stiffly, whilst Bilbo surreptitiously nudges the leftover bandages out of sight. “I was merely seeking Bilbo’s advice with something."

“Oh, taking _counsel_ with my cousin now, were you, Master Burglar?”

Bilbo isn’t sure what the Lord of the Ironhills is insinuating, but it certainly isn’t so innocent as counsel, given the waggle of Dáin’s eyebrows and the sudden reddish hue staining Thorin’s cheeks.

Damn it; Bilbo’s _definitely_ missing something, and he has a horrible suspicion it’s at his expense.

He stalls. “I, um…”

“Master Baggins has been helping with the healers,” Thorin jumps in again, his voice strangely formal.

“Yes.” Bilbo takes the save gratefully. “I was just on my way out, as a matter of fact.”

“Bilbo often helps with the evening meal,” Thorin informs Dáin.

“I — yes, that too…”

“It is getting late.” Thorin’s blue eyes pin him to the spot. “I do not wish to keep you.”

 _Giving Bilbo an escape, or trying to get rid of him?_ Bilbo hasn’t the faintest clue. He takes the offer all the same.

“No, of course. We can continue our… discussion some other time.”

“I would like that,” Thorin says cordially.

“Discussion?” Dáin prompts.

Thorin and Bilbo share a look.

Bilbo coughs. “More of a passing conversation, really.”

“Nothing of importance,” Thorin agrees.

“His majesty and I were just discussing…”

“Wood beetles.” Thorin finishes solemnly, and Dáin looks at him with a blanket confusion and disbelief that is nothing short of comical, and Bilbo can't help it, the tension and the slack surprise on Dáin face and the absurdity of it all — he bursts into laughter.

“Beetles?” Dáin repeats, looking lost.

“Tricky things, wood beetles,” Bilbo agrees, fighting off another wave of giggles. Thorin nods gravely, which only risks setting him off again. Dáin’s expression is so priceless though, Bilbo can’t resist teasing him further. “Invaluable in the wild of course, attacking dying trees, culling the dead bark, allowing new growth to occur. They’re primary decomposers within forest systems, allowing for the recycling of nutrients locked away in the relatively decay-resilient material of trees. But then, put them in your home, and it’s an entirely different story. Burrow into your furniture, lay their eggs, and before you know it — _poof!_ Your favourite chair’s collapsed. And then of course you _do_ get invasive species that threaten natural forest ecosystems, which, words do not begin to express how irritating that is, and how near- _impossible_ it is to get rid of them. Can never be too careful with the wood beetles, is all I’m saying.”

Dáin appears to have lost the thread of whatever argument he was trying to make, which Bilbo considers a success. Thorin looks a bit lost himself, but also like he’s trying incredibly hard not to laugh, which is arguably also a win. Thorin may enjoy mocking Bilbo’s prattle and spouts of verbosity, but he has clearly yet to realise what an incredibly effective weapon it can be. Take the trolls. Gollum. _Smaug_ , even. Bilbo is three foot tall; words and manners are often his only defence.

“But yes, I should be going,” he adds into the silence. “Now that we’ve all been educated on the perils of nature. Lord Dáin, it was lovely to make your acquaintance. I do hope we have a chance to speak again soon. Thorin…” he trails off.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Thorin asks neutrally, but Bilbo knows him well enough to hear the uncertainty beneath it.

“Yes,” he assures, dropping his airs to let Thorin see his sincerity, “as soon as I’m done helping Bombur with the evening meal.”

Thorin's smile is slow to grow, but there’s an openness and intimacy to it that steals Bilbo’s breath away. “Until then, Master Baggins,” he says softly.

“Until then,” Bilbo echoes, and promptly flees before he can start laughing hysterically again.

“I’m confused,” Dáin’s voice announces from inside the tent the moment Bilbo steps out.

“He has that effect.” Thorin’s voice agrees. He sounds strangely pleased by the thought. “I’d say you grow accustomed to it, but…”

Dáin snorts. “Well. You certainly know how to pick em, cousin.”

There’s a faint thump that sounds like Thorin hitting him. Bilbo frowns, perplexed himself now, but forces himself to keep walking, leaving the two of them to talk undisturbed.

* * *

Slowly, without ceremony, the days slip by.

A semblance of organisation begins to emerge from the chaos. The ruins of Dale become kitchens, hospitals, meeting spaces, refuge. Stone walls, ancient timbers, collapsed roofs covered with cloth — their temporary sanctuary quickly finds its feet on the exposed bones of the old city. Each race maintains a watch, rotates through defence duties, cooking and scavenging, communicating with the scattering of survivors. Thranduil’s carts of food have run out, but Dáin’s army brought with them enough rations to keep them all going for a bit longer, with the help of some foraging and hunting. Interracial cooperation is tenuous — more of an unacknowledged pact of mutual apathy than anything else; a defaulting to tabula rasa in the wake of their worlds imploding so absolutely. They’re all bruised and scarred, held together with stubborn hope and stitches, but no one is ready to give up now.

Bilbo continues to help in the rough hospital they’ve created out of dwarven field tents and rickety cots. He learns which plants to crush to make pain remedies, how to lance and drain wounds, tend fevers, watch for infections. He trades witticisms with Óin, endures his affectionate abuse toward Bilbo’s burgeoning skill at the simplest of healing tasks. He takes his meals with the Company, (now joined by Tauriel at Kíli’s insistence), and stops by a dozen or so campfires belonging to new friends on his way. He tells stories to Bard’s children. He wraps bandages. He scavenges for herbs. He finds a tiny strawberry plant one day, and cries at the taste of home.

He visits Thorin every day to check on his foot, and every day it’s a bit easier.

* * *

“You’re quiet today.”

“I am always quiet.”

“This is a different kind of quiet to your usual taciturn surliness.”

Thorin just humphs. Most people would be adequately dissuaded by that, but then, Thorin needs to stop holding Bilbo accountable to theoretical normal standards, because that is clearly a waste of time.

Bilbo doesn’t even need to say anything by this point; he just _looks_ at Thorin, one eyebrow raised.

Thorin sighs. “They want to crown me this evening. Officially, this time.”

Balin had been gently prompting the issue for days now, but Thorin had so far been managing to forestall the issue on the basis there were more important things to worry about. Dáin, unfortunately, was less easy to deter.

“ _Your people need a King, Thorin.”_

 _“A_ sane _King,”_ Thorin had spat back, but Dáin merely took it in stride.

_“A King who abdicates on the grounds of insanity, thus demonstrating his own sanity in asking to abdicate out of concern for others?”_

_“This isn’t a fucking joke—”_

_“Who’s laughing?” Dáin says, blunt and plain-spoken as always. “The gold took you, aye, but you fought the bugger back. Not even Thrór could claim that.”_

_Thorin jerks his head away, defying the accolade and the kindness it was meant in with a turn of his gaze. “I cannot be their King,” he says hoarsely._

_“You’ve been king for a long time already, cousin. Wearing the crown won’t change that. But this kingdom needs you, whether you like it or not.”_ For all his cousin’s fearsome savagery in battle and boisterous, careless manner, Thorin always manages to forget that Dáin is a formidable ruler in his own right, but he sees it now, in the candour of his counsel and the frank, unsympathetic delivery of his reprove. _“Now are you going to keep sitting here feeling sorry for yourself, or are you going to step up and do what needs to be done?”_

“That’s good right?” Bilbo ventures, resting Thorin’s foot on his lap whilst he reaches for fresh bandages. “You are their King.”

The title makes Thorin flinch. “Why — because of the Arkenstone?” The hole in his chest still confines Thorin to his bed, but he can see the evidence of suffering on the reports Balin brings him daily, on the pyres that continue to burn with the dead every night. “I’m unworthy of their fealty.”

There’s a pause. Bilbo’s hands still, resting on his ankle. “Thorin.”

Thorin stares at his hands, mute.

“Look at me.”

He does. Bilbo’s eyes reflect the grief that Thorin feels, but something tells him that this grief is not merely for the suffering outside.

“Do you think your Company follow you because of a damn stone? Because you’re descended from a line of kings?” Bilbo shakes his head jerkily. “Thorin, we came because of _you._ Crowns and kingdoms and shiny rocks aside, you, Thorin Oakenshield, are good, and kind and brave, and the first to sacrifice for your people. You’ve made mistakes, yes, but that doesn’t make you unworthy. It makes you just as fallible as everyone else.”

Thorin’s lungs revolt against him. He wants to tell Bilbo that a King is not permitted to be the same as everyone else, that there is no room for mistakes or vulnerability when the weight of an entire race sits on his shoulders, that he is not allowed to keep anything for himself — not even his own weakness — because he has to be bigger than that.

He wants to find the words to explain this horrible, gaping nothingness inside of him, this absence where they had once been drive and purpose and mettle, a hollow flame burning with an unquenchable rage, but he can’t. There aren’t words enough in the world to encompass how unworthy he is of the mantle he had once been so desperate to reclaim. How could he even _try_ to explain it — to Dáin whose dwarves had fought and died on his summons, to the Company who had risked everything helping him get here, to everyone who’s counting on him?

“And how am I supposed to lead them?” Thorin voices those questions he would never dare ask, never except for some reason this hobbit who has always existed apart from everyone else. “How am I to even face them, after what I’ve done?”

“As yourself,” Bilbo replies simply. “Nothing more, nothing less. Apologise, accept the consequences for your actions, and pledge to use your power for where it’s needed.”

Trust Bilbo to make what seemed like an infeasible feat in his mind sound so simple. It strikes him to the core, the sheer, staggering faith Bilbo has in him — the _loyalty;_ he can’t fathom what he’s done to deserve it. It’s humbling and empowering and terrifying all at once, because Thorin can’t bear the thought of letting that faith down.

“And what if they won’t even give me that chance?”

Thorin thinks not only of dwarves — of Dáin, who’s always had his back, or his Company, who had forgiven him the instant he had asked them to follow him, one last time — but of Bard, of the men he had brought destruction upon, of Thranduil’s scorn and the might of the Greenwood.

Bilbo studies him lengthily, quiet eyes effortlessly bypassing his endless walls and seeing everything Thorin is usually so careful to hide. 

Then he smiles: a small, knowing quirk of his lips. “Oh, I’m betting that they will.”

* * *

Bilbo starts with Bard, because, unlike Thranduil, at least the two of them have some semblance of civility in their past interactions. Civility in this case being _not_ breaking thirteen dwarves out of his prison. Alas, bygone respectability.

Bard and his family have set themselves up in one of the less exposed ruins in Dale, and Bilbo has enjoyed the occasional conversation shared over their fire in evenings past. His blunder with the Arkenstone may have caused more problems than it solved, but in the very least it seems to have won him the Bowman’s elusive respect for his attempt to bring peace. He and Bard are working up a steady friendship, and it doesn’t hurt his case that the man’s children seem utterly enamoured with Bilbo’s storytelling. Anyone can see that Bard holds his children’s judgement above all others.

Bard himself isn’t home when Bilbo calls by, but his daughters are, and Bilbo is halfway through spinning his account of his interaction with Smaug by the time Bard walks in with Bain.

“You told him he was _big_?” Tilda interrupts, her face creasing with confusion.

“Very big,” Bilbo agrees solemnly.

“But why?”

“Aha well, if you know your draconic history, as all little girls ought to, you’d know that compared to the dragons of old such as Ancalagon the Black, Smaug really was a rather tiny beast in comparison. A little targeted flattery never goes amiss when one is dealing with dragons.”

“Sagely wisdom, from one who was almost fried to a crisp not soon after,” Bard’s dry voice interjects, and the girls leap up to greet their father. He laughs, kissing their foreheads. “Not filling my girls’ heads with talk of adventure now, are you Mister Baggins?”

“I would never,” Bilbo assures, but he doesn’t bother to hide his smile. “How fare the men?”

Bard’s own smile dims a notch, revealing the ever-present strain underneath. “Colder and hungrier by the day, but they’re determined to see through the winter. They haven’t survived dragon fire and war only to be defeated by snow and ice.”

“Your people have suffered enough,” Bilbo agrees sincerely. “That’s actually what I came to talk to you about.”

Bard flashes him a quizzical look, but obliges. He signals for his children to give them a moment and takes a seat opposite Bilbo, warming his hands by the campfire.

“Thorin’s calling a meeting later today.” Bilbo explains once they’re alone. “He’s reassuming the throne of Erebor, and he’s going to propose an alliance.”

“Is that so.”

Bilbo thinks he’s rather well versed in the art of deadpan inflections — how to smooth one’s voice to nearly nothing and yet still portray violent scepticism in every word. All that was nothing to this, to the utter flatness in Bard’s voice.

“I’m not going to ask your forgiveness on his behalf,” Bilbo goes on hurriedly, "but I would ask that you hear him out. I know you have little reason to trust him, but trust _me_ when I say that he’s not the same dwarf who turned you away. He _wants_ to make peace, to recompense your people and give them the same aid he would give his own, and honestly Bard, I’m afraid that without the shelter and assets of the Mountain, your people might not see through the winter at all.”

Bard doesn’t reply straight away. He regards Bilbo over the fire, studying him shrewdly. Bilbo wonders what he sees.

“You have faith in Thorin,” Bard says eventually.

It’s not a question, but Bilbo answers anyway. “I do.”

“You care for him.”

Again, not a question. “I…” Bilbo stammers, “well, I mean, lots of people do. He’s a good person, really. You just caught him at… at a really bad time. He'll be a great king. I know he will.”

“Clearly. If he makes everyone feel the way that you do.”

Bilbo scowls at him, flustered. “It's not just me that says that.”

“No, I'm sure it isn’t.” Bard allows, with a small smirk. “Very well. I’ll hear him out. But no promises.”

“You won’t regret it,” Bilbo says fervently, and he’s treated to another lingering, perplexed look.

“Are all of the Shirefolk like you?”

“Like what?”

Bard waves a hand vaguely. “…Sweet talking dragons and bartering for kingdoms and sternly lecturing gold-crazed dwarves.”

Unfortunately Bard doesn’t get an answer, as Bilbo is laughing too much to reply.

* * *

The elves are next on his agenda.

“Mister Greenleaf,” Bilbo says politely when the tent opens. “Bilbo Baggins, at your service.”

“My father is not receiving anyone currently,” Legolas announces, in the tone of someone having voiced the same things many times already.

“Yes, I’m aware. But I’m not here to see him, I’m here to see you.”

Legolas’s expression sharpens from bland to wary in a split second. “Is that so.”

“Yes. So look. Thorin’s calling a meeting. He’s going to propose an alliance with the Greenwood.”

“This sounds like something you should be telling my father.”

“Right, yes, but. Your father? Not my greatest admirer.” After Bilbo had snuck into his dungeons, burgled his prisoners, and made off with the remnants of his wine cellar. Good times. “I want you to convince your father he should accept the truce.”

Legolas stares at him like he’s utterly insane. “Why by the Valar would I do that?”

“Because you know it’s a good idea. These lands have lived through enough war and hardship, we’re going to _need_ to all work together fairly soon if the events of Dol Guldur and Angmar and the darker powers stirring in the East are any indication. And honestly, it’s a far better deal than you deserve.”

Legolas’s lips peel back into a snarl, but Bilbo faced Smaug, he can deal with one posturing elf prince. “My father will _never_ agree —”

“Your father has no room to throw blame at the dwarves after _he_ betrayed their alliance in the first place when he refused aid and abandoned the dwarven refugees to starve in the wilderness, after _he_ imprisoned our Company for the simple crime of passing through your lands, and after _he_ came armed for war the moment the mountain was reclaimed over a handful of gems.

“Yes, Erebor is barely on its feet now. But it will not stay that way. The Greenwood may have occupied the dominant power in this land for past years, but now, having made the decision to betray your alliance with the dwarves when Smaug came, it’s _really_ not in your best interests to be turning down this alliance.”

The elf’s nostrils flare. “Are you threatening us?”

“What? No. No, I’m — oh _bother_ , I was actually just threatening you wasn’t I?” Bilbo sighs, rubbing his forehead. This conversation is definitely not going the way he’d hoped. Clearly he’s been spending too much time with dwarves, if he’s _threatening_ people without realising. “Sorry. No. That’s not it at all. I’m just… asking you for a favour, because we both know your father won’t touch this deal with a ten-foot lance, but _you_ — you could maybe make him _consider_ it at least before he rejects it out of hand.”

Legolas still looks thoroughly unconvinced. Bilbo sighs. “I’m not saying the dwarves aren’t absent of blame — all of us are at fault in one way or another, myself included, but this alliance is a chance for us to move past all that. Obviously they’ll be conditions and negotiations and we’ll probably spend a depressingly long time hammering out details in the treatises, but it has to start _somewhere_. There at least needs to be the mutual _desire_ for peace, if nothing else. Won’t you even consider it?”

The elf doesn’t answer. He studies Bilbo piercingly, suspicion now edged with curiosity. “Why come to me? You and I have never interacted. You know nothing of my character.”

“Maybe not directly, but I know you _helped._ You fought with us, even when your father gave the retreat order. You and Tauriel — you _care,_ evidently about more than your own borders. I know you are not your father, just as Thorin is not his grandfather. It’s time we stopped judging each other for the sins of the past. For the sake of _all_ of our peoples.”

Legolas measures him wordlessly again, eyes narrowed. “Tauriel helped you with this, didn’t she.”

“She speaks well of you,” Bilbo concedes, honestly. He pauses. “She may have also told me where to find you.”

Legolas just sighs. “I will consider it,” he says.

Bilbo smiles. “That’s all I ask.”

* * *

They come to Thorin in the quiet sanctuary of the healing tent. Sitting up though it obviously pains him, plain-clothed and unadorned and somehow all the more regal because of it. Sunlight, pale and weak, floods into the tent through the open drapes, pinned back to grant the space to fit everyone in. What little warmth they had inside is leaked out by the icy winds, but to Thorin it’s nothing but refreshing — banishing the hazy fog of sickness that lingers from the past week. Despite the exposure to the elements, the hum of noise from the camp outside seems strangely distant, as though in this tent they stand apart from the rest of the world.

Allies and adversaries alike filter in, dwarves and men and elves and wizards, all eying each other with poorly masked distrust.

A distant apology breaks the silence. It’s too polite and particular to be anyone else, and Thorin feels an involuntary smile soften the hard lines of his face as he sees Bilbo squeeze past the multitude of people crowding the entrance, apologising profusely to everyone in his wake. If things weren’t so dire, Thorin would have found it quietly hilarious — all these elves and men and dwarves stood around glaring at each other whilst this tiny hobbit picks his way through them respectfully begging their pardon, terribly sorry, have a nice day. Many of them look surprised to see Bilbo. It’s a comforting thing about him: he may throw Thorin into regular confusion every time he shows up, but he at least has the courtesy to extend that effect to everyone else.

Bilbo eventually ends up sidling up next to Gandalf, who wordlessly offers Bilbo his pipe. Bilbo accepts with more gracious platitudes, but the look of companionship shared between wizard and hobbit is anything but feigned. Gandalf bends down to mutter something in Bilbo’s ear, and Bilbo flushes, his gaze immediately darting to Thorin.

What Thorin wouldn’t give to know what Gandalf had told him.

Bilbo offers him a tentative smile, and an almost imperceptible nod. The faith in it has Thorin swallowing his guilt and what’s left of his pride and any lingering resentment he might feel, and Thorin turns to face his audience.

“Thank you all for coming,” he begins. “I asked you here because all of us face the same daunting challenge in the weeks and months ahead — not merely of rebuilding and recompense, but of survival. If we are to make it through the winter, we are going to need to work together, and I know many of you have every reason to distrust such an alliance.”

Thorin pauses, gathering the shattered pieces of himself together. “I know I have no right to ask for a second chance. Nothing I can ever do will change the horrors that happened, horrors I could have prevented, had things gone differently. I may have been compromised by the thrall of gold, but that doesn’t change the fact I was in a position of power and authority and I did nothing to aid the people who needed me.”

He looks up at his audience, meets Bard’s wariness, Thranduil’s icy hostility, Dáin’s humouring smile, Gandalf’s quiet contemplation, his Company’s silent and unwavering support.

And then Bilbo, looking at him soft and certain in that way he has of seeing Thorin with all the belief that Thorin can never muster to find in himself. He draws strength from it as he continues;

“I would try, though, if you will let me: in action, in deed. I cannot right this wrong. But I can promise that, now I am King, I will do everything that I can to prevent anything like this ever happening again. From this day forth, all races, dwarf, man and elf alike, will be treated with the respect and recompense they deserve. I give you my word. There are consequences for my actions and I will take them, but if you consent to allow me to assume the throne once more, I will use my privilege for where it’s needed.”

His words linger long in the air after their sound fades. Thorin feels exhausted suddenly, as though he had just fought another battle.

They all know that Bard and Thranduil have no authority to decide who sits on the throne of Erebor, no power to deny Thorin his crown. But they could still refuse an alliance, and that would be just as damaging, as vulnerable as they were currently.

Bard steps forward, his expression stony. “I never wanted conflict between us, Thorin, son of Thráin. But nor can I forget the way you treated my people.” He pauses, then for some inexplicable reason, glances sideways at Bilbo. The hobbit meets his stare evenly. Bard sighs. “And yet it is for the sake of those people that I accept your promise of alliance, for I know we will not long survive the winter without it. May time prove to me your sincerity; you will forgive me if I cannot take you merely at your word right now.” A wry smile on the man’s face softens the jibe.

Thorin bows his head, accepting the olive branch for what it is. “I could hope for nothing more. May our peoples go forth in friendship, as they did in the days of old.”

Thranduil had been uncharacteristically silent so far, but now under Thorin’s scrutinising gaze he steps forward, exchanging an equally inscrutable look with his son.

“Your platitudes do you credit, Durinsson; let us see whether or not you live up to them.”

His honeyed words are laced with derision, but from the Elvenking, that’s as good a stay of execution as Thorin can expect. He forces himself to nod to Thranduil as well.

“So what now?” Bard says into the awkward silence, thankfully breaking their standoff.

“Now,” Thorin says, “we start upon the Sisyphean task of rebuilding our kingdoms.”

“Oh, is that all?” Bard snipes, but he’s smiling.

And Thorin thinks: _yes, we can do this._

* * *

“Okay,” Bilbo says briskly the moment he sits down that evening. He pulls Thorin’s foot automatically into his lap now without waiting on ceremony. “Okay. Plan. Despite Smaug’s temper tantrum, Balin says Erebor won’t be collapsing on our heads anytime soon, and Gandalf’s managed to cleanse Smaug’s malice from the gold, so we’re clear to move back into the Mountain before the blizzard hits. Dáin’s sending half his forces back to the Iron Hills tomorrow, but he’s staying for the winter along with the other half to help with rebuilding, which, on that matter, _why_ does everyone consider your cousin unreasonable and brutish? He seems perfectly obliging to me.”

 _That’s because he likes you,_ Thorin thinks. _Because you’ve put yourself between Durin’s folk and death a dozen times over, because it’s widely known now that this quest wouldn’t have succeeded without you, and oh wait, he’s also under the impression that you and I are engaged._

“It’s the eyebrows,” Thorin deadpans. “They scare people.”

Bilbo scrunches up his nose at that, then makes a face like, _yeah, fair enough._ He begins rebinding Thorin’s foot as he continues. “On the theme of departing armies, we just have to give Thranduil enough to keep him happy so then _he_ can kindly march his elven-behind back to his treehouse. That leaves the men and, well, Bard knows that security is what will get us through this winter, so opening the mountain to them and pooling together our resources should solve most problems in terms of us all getting along. I’m starting to wonder if we should maybe include Legolas in future negotiations too? It might be useful, having someone who can keep Thranduil on the proverbial short leash if need be. Thorin, mind explaining that look you’re giving me?”

Thorin is shamelessly staring at him, one eyebrow raised in amusement as he waits for Bilbo to finish. It hasn’t escaped his notice that Bilbo’s check ups of his injury are turning more into diplomacy powwows than anything else, but somehow Thorin finds himself not minding. Bilbo has a knack for this. He’s pragmatic and perceptive, his candour is refreshing, his council insightful, and the neutrality that his race grants him proves invaluable for mediating between them all. Thorin doesn’t want to consider how he would have coped without Bilbo these past days.

“The Shire must have been a political minefield indeed, for you to have honed such skills in bureaucracy,” he says gravely.

Bilbo snorts. “It’s a savvy business, cultivating the spread of idle gossip. We are all trained from a young age to deflect nosy questions from errant relatives, harbour ill will with utmost civility, and speak without saying what we mean.”

“I shall be leaving the elves to you in future then.”

Bilbo swats his knee lightly with the excess linen, apparently not meriting that with an answer. “I’m proud of you, you know. You didn’t curse Thranduil once today.”

Thorin’s expression sours at the thought. “He is fortunate I was on my best behaviour.”

“I wasn’t aware you had a best behaviour. I just assumed it was various shades of irascibility and regal sulking.”

“That’s only because _you_ have a natural disposition to disagree with everything I say.”

“Well, _someone_ has to.”

Now it’s Thorin’s turn to swat him, this time with a tassel of herbs. Bilbo bats his hands away, laughing.

“Alright. I’ll talk to Legolas again and find out what Thranduil wants. Happy?”

“‘ _Again?"_ Thorin says, eyebrows raised. He tries to remember when Bilbo might have conversed with the elf prince, and comes out on a blank.

Bilbo waves a hand vaguely. “I may have happened across him this morning and gently encouraged him to try and curb the more hostile impulses of his less tolerant relatives.”

Thorin wonders how that conversation went. Then again, based on the satisfied look Bilbo is wearing, maybe he doesn’t want to know.

“And Bard’s children too, I suppose?”

Because despite what Balin says, Thorin _can_ be observant when he wants to be, and he had seen the look exchanged between Bard and Bilbo in the tent.

“The only matters I’ve spoken to Bard’s children of are tales of trolls and dragons,” Bilbo dismisses airily, finishing tying off Thorin’s bandage.

“And Bard?”

Dark eyes flicker up to meet his, a tad exasperated, but underpinned with fondness and understanding. “Merely a reminder of the reassurances I gave in Laketown. No more, no less.”

_(Me. I’ll vouch for him.)_

As if Thorin would ever forget. Curls gilded by firelight, voice clear and steady in the deafening silence, snowflakes twisting around the ephemeral clouds of his words in the freezing air.

_(If Thorin Oakenshield gives his word, he will keep it.)_

Emotion makes his throat close up. Thorin wants to tell him how much Bilbo’s faith means to him. He wants to ask how Bilbo has managed to befriend and charm everyone in the camp, how he always seems to know the right thing to say. He wants to know why Bilbo continues to speak on Thorin’s behalf, and if he even realises how that’s most of the reason former adversaries are even willing to hear him out.

 _Do you even know that what you’re doing is exactly akin to what a consort would be doing?_ _Do you take this position of intermediary and confidant and negotiator at my side knowing what message that sends to everyone else? Do you even understand how perfect you are?_

“Thank you, for what you’re doing,” Thorin says, a tad hoarsely.

It’s not what he wants to say, not even close, but understanding alights in Bilbo’s eyes all the same.

“It’s only a bandage, Thorin,” he deflects lightly, but all the softness of the universe is within his expression as his hand finds its way into Thorin’s, and silently squeezes. 

* * *

“They’re not sleeping together.”

“Well what _else_ have they been doing in that tent?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not—”

“Dwalin walked in on them the other day, and Bilbo was _kneeling at Thorin’s feet._ ”

“So? He’s a king, lots of people kneel at his feet. Bit unfair of you to single Bilbo out.”

“Bilbo was washing his hands.”

“That still doesn’t prove anything.”

“Thorin didn’t even have a shirt on.”

“A fact that does not automatically equal oral sex.”

Nori throws his hands up in the air in a gesture of pure exasperation.

Bofur merely takes a lazy puff of his pipe. “Did Dwalin _ask_ them what they were doing?”

“Of course.”

“And? What did they say?”

“Yoga.”

“… _yoga_?”

“Some hobbit meditation practice, apparently.”

“Well. That’s definitely made up.”

“ _Right?”_

“I still don’t think they’re sleeping together though. Thorin would be a might less wound up all the time if he were debauching our burglar every night."

“Ten gold says you’re wrong.”

Bofur eyes him dubiously. “Do you even _have_ ten gold?”

“There’s a mountain full of it just up there, and I’m entitled to a fourteenth of it,” Nori reasons idly.

“Yes. I’m sure Thorin will be thrilled to know you’re using it to take wagers on his sex life.”

“And you’re not?”

Bofur blows a smoke ring into Nori’s face, and grins. “Ten gold. You’re on.”

* * *

Bilbo is discovering a wealth of useful things during his time split between Thorin’s side and the general hubbub of the camp.

One of which is that needles of pine trees can be made into tea that staves off hunger when food is scarce (which it often is, in the last few days before they move into the mountain).

Another of which is that Bofur is suspiciously good at tracking down athelas plants, even more so than Tauriel, so much so that Bilbo starts wondering _what_ that dwarf has been smoking this entire time.

A more surprising finding is that Legolas is very fond of lively song and sweet berries, and after their initial more-hostile interactions, is painfully easy to like when he’s not acting like a prejudiced, arrogant immortal.

The absolute best discovery though, is that Thorin becomes strangely pliant whenever Bilbo is tending to his injury. They still bicker, of course, and disagree frequently, but he’s far more likely to listen (and less likely to bite Bilbo’s head off) when Bilbo’s got Thorin’s foot cradled in his hands. A handy facet of this is that Bilbo finds it a prime time to broach more difficult subjects.

“So Thranduil,” he begins one day when he sits down, and Thorin only sighs.

The next day, the White Gems of Lasgalen are gifted to the Elvenking.

“How on _earth_ did you convince him?” Balin splutters when he takes Bilbo aside afterwards.

"I talked to him?” Bilbo offers.

"You talked to him,” Balin repeats, and Bilbo just shrugs in response.

_I cupped the fragile bones of his ankle in my palms and watched the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles and explained patiently why we needed our peoples to work together._

“I know, Thorin can be a tad unreasonable at times,” Bilbo concedes, “but if you talk to him he often comes around.”

Nearby, Dwalin makes a highly disbelieving noise, as if to say, _that has never happened before in the history of Middle Earth, ever._

Balin is still staring at him as though Bilbo had just announced he had seen Thorin doing nude cartwheels around the healing tent.

Bilbo just smiles vaguely, and changes the subject.

It happens again when Thorin grants Tauriel a grudging offer to join them in Erebor’s halls, in light of her efforts to save his nephew’s life and her banishment from the Woodland realm. A wide array of entertaining reactions ripple through their small audience. Dwalin swears under his breath. Bombur spills his bowl of stew into his beard. In the background, Balin makes a sound like he’s just tried to inhale his tea. Even the elf is rendered momentarily speechless. She bows low to Thorin, offering her thanks and her bow and blade from this day forth. Kíli’s face is a picture throughout the announcement, unable to settle between slack-jawed astonishment and uncontainable joy. At his side, Fíli looks more contemplative than anything, and raises his eyebrows at Bilbo, who merely winks at him.

Then it happens with the near-obscene amount of gold given to Bard for the men to rebuild their lives, and again with Thorin’s offer for them all to take shelter in the Lonely Mountain until Spring. Bard looks utterly overwhelmed at the show of generosity. Gandalf just turns amused, knowing eyes to Bilbo, who beams, radiant with pride at Thorin’s side, more-so for Thorin didn’t actually need any convincing on this at all, only the support to go through with it.

Albeit, it’s not all highbrow discussions of foreign policy.

One evening sees Bilbo and Thorin having a whisper-fight about the difference between a cottage and a shepherd’s pie. It ends when, after nearly an hour of arguing, insults, and threats, the two of them realise that dwarves and hobbits make completely different pies from each other that both happen to translate in Westron to ‘cottage’ and ‘shepherd’ respectively, and they both start giggling and apologising over each other, musing that _“I can't believe Dwalin stood guard outside through all that, he must have wool in his ears”_ and then there's the sound of a blade drawing from its sheath outside the tent and they both look over in terror.

(Bilbo is still laughing at the look on Dwalin’s face for days afterward.)

Of course, there are many things still Bilbo has yet to discover. Why the dwarves guarding Thorin’s tent often bow to Bilbo as he enters. Why every time someone brings up the mithril he wears Thorin very quickly changes the subject with a faintly panicked expression. Why the Company start eyeing him knowingly and waggling their eyebrows whenever they see him leave Thorin’s tent.

There’s an uncomfortable and irrepressible sense that everyone else knows something he doesn’t. Sometimes he considers asking Thorin about it, but he’s under so much pressure already, and always looks so uncharacteristically afraid whenever the issue is hinted on, that Bilbo doesn’t want to take these brief moments of respite and care between them and turn them into another point of stress.

So he takes the curious looks from strangers and the whispers from his friends and the way Thorin watches him when he thinks Bilbo isn’t looking, and he stays quiet.

 _Besides_ , Bilbo thinks silently, as he traces the arch of Thorin’s instep with his thumb in what would be an obscenely erotic act by hobbit standards, _Thorin is hardly the only one keeping secrets_.

* * *

The day arrives for them to move back into the Mountain.

Another dawn spills over the ice. Dove-grey clouds, pale light through a winter mist, a bracing morning wind chasing away the last vestiges of night. The promise of the oncoming blizzard hurries them along: packing up tents, dousing fires, loading their meagre supplies onto horses and carts in a bustle of frantic activity. A retinue of dwarves wait to escort Thorin back to Erebor. A cart stands ready, plush with furs to bear him up the few miles from Dale.

Thorin glowers at it silently. He had entreated Óin to let him ride, let him enter the halls on his own two feet rather than flat on his back, helpless and powerless. Óin was having none of it.

 _“Better borne on a stretcher than collapse in the doorway,”_ he reasoned. _“Don’t give me that look, laddie. You may be our king, but you’re my patient first, and I’ve worked too hard to keep you alive.”_

So Thorin resigns himself to the indignity of being treated as an invalid, and his foul-temper only lifts marginally when his nephews are forced to join him for the journey. Leaving the healing tent is apparently one thing; hiking up to the Lonely Mountain on the cusp of a blizzard is quite another.

“But why do we have to go in the cart?" Fíli asks again, longingly eyeing the rams serving as Dáin’s mounts which are lined up ready to escort them.

“Your leg is broken,” Thorin points out flatly.

“ _Mine_ isn’t,” Kíli inserts. His brother shoots him a look of utter betrayal.

“It's the cart, or I sedate you both and tie you to the end of a horse," Bilbo says calmly, scowling at Fíli until he climbs awkwardly in the cart with an exaggerated huff.

“Kíli, my sister’s-son,” Thorin says, “get in the damn cart.”

“But why am _I_ getting in the cart?" Kíli whines.

“Sedation," Bilbo says. “Horse.”

Kíli sighs theatrically, but gets in the cart.

They’re a miserable party on the journey up towards the mountain, pouting in their furs. Bilbo rides behind them, looking incredibly uncomfortable on his ram, but soon Bofur rides up to join him, and the two engage in happy conversation. They’re too far away for Thorin to hear what they’re saying. Every now and again, though, Bilbo’s laughter rings out, clear and genuine, evidently in response to some hilarity from Bofur. Thorin scowls, and slumps further into his furs.

To his left, Fíli lets out a small, exasperated noise. “Mahal’s forges, you’re as bad as Kili with that elf. Stop pining and call Bilbo over, if you’re so desperate for his company.”

Riding just ahead of them, Dwalin snorts, quickly disguising it as a cough when Thorin glares at him.

“I am not pining,” Thorin denies automatically. “I’m planning a strategy. Also, no.”

“I thought you had sorted things out with him.” That’s Kíli now, rolling over to face then with expectant eyes.

Thorin sighs. Why can’t they all go back to ignoring his relationship with Bilbo? He liked it when they were doing that. “It’s not that simple,” he says.

“Why not?”

Thorin shifts, struggling to find a way to explain it, to make them understand why even _considering_ the possibility of Bilbo like that is hopeless now. He fumbles for explanations and excuses, but what comes out is —

“Bilbo is not a dwarf.”

Fíli’s looking worried now. “No, he’s not,” he says slowly. “Uncle, are you feeling alright?”

He lifts a hand towards Thorin’s forehead as if to check his fever.

Thorin bats his hand away, irritated. “Bilbo is not a dwarf,” he repeats, more emphatically. “He was not raised as we were. Our customs are not known to him, and as such he does not understand—”

“Doesn’t understand what?” Bilbo’s voice interrupts mildly.

Thorin freezes, head snapping round to see Bilbo now riding side-on to the cart, head tilted, cheeks flushed in the morning chill. He looks curious and confused rather than wary and suspicious though, so Thorin thinks he can’t have overheard that much.

Thorin opens his mouth to muster an answer, but he’s caught — caught in the way the dawn catches Bilbo’s face, limns the slight furrow of his brow and brushes along the curve of his jaw.

It is Kíli who comes to his unlikely rescue. “Khuzdul,” he answers easily.

Fíli’s head whips round to stare at his brother. Dwalin chokes on his water-skin. Thorin just blinks.

Bilbo’s nose has scrunched up in confusion. “Khuzdul?”

“The secret language of the dwarves,” Fíli continues after a beat, playing along.

“It’s not _secret,_ as such…” Kíli amends.

“Every dwarf learns it, before Westron even,” Fíli agrees. “It’s just not, well…”

“Not something taught to outsiders,” Kíli fills in. “But we were just saying…”

“You should learn,” Fíli finishes.

His voice is light, but Thorin can hear the edge in it, doesn’t miss how both his nephews are eying his nervously, as though waiting for the moment he erupts in protest as they are no doubt expecting him to, because Khuzdul…

Khuzdul is _sacred_. It’s _theirs_. _Do not share with outsiders_ is practically hammered into every dwarf from the moment they are old enough to speak.

But honestly, now that Thorin considers it, he can’t think why he hasn’t proposed the idea himself sooner. It’s easy to forget, after so many months spent on the road, that Bilbo doesn’t speak their tongue or know their lore. Easy to forget, when he has infiltrated himself so thoroughly into their midst and into Thorin’s heart.

“Learn your _secret_ language?” Bilbo repeats, a tad dryly. “But I’m not a dwarf.”

Fíli groans, palm meeting his forehead with a loud smack. Thorin smirks briefly at the echo of his own words, but the expression quickly fades under the reminder of why the whole conversation began in the first place. He sinks further into the furs.

“You’re _hardly_ an outsider though, right Uncle?” Kíli says, gaining momentum now that Thorin hasn’t made any move to shut him up. “You’re one of us. You’re _kin._ And you know, the library in Erebor isn’t all translated into Westron, and we all know how you miss your books…”

“Well, I suppose, only…” Bilbo’s eyes flicker between them, obviously picking up on the tension in the air but unable to put his finger on the reason for it. He ventures, tentatively, “I wouldn’t be doing anything unlawful? I don’t want you to get you in trouble, and if it’s not proper…”

Thorin almost smiles. Bilbo and his propriety. It’s comforting, in a way, to know that even after dragging him through the wild for months and going through all the horrifying things they had along the way, that in some ways Bilbo remains very much the same. That one can stab goblins and grapple spiders and still retain a healthy sense of decorum. Thorin fondly adds it to his ever growing list of things he doesn’t understand about Bilbo Baggins.

His nephews, meanwhile, are vigorously insisting that Bilbo is their sun, their joy, their long lost brother-in-soul, and that his ability to speak to them in their native tongue is both entirely respectable and desperately important for their happiness.

Bilbo turns dubious eyes on Thorin, who shrugs. “It would be good for you to learn,” he allows, and that’s that.

They pass the rest of the ride teaching Bilbo words for everything they pass. _Tree. Snow._ _Raven. Ice. Frost. Mountain. Blizzard. Snow bank. Fine snow. Deep snow —_

(“You have nine different words for snow?” Bilbo asks.

“Twelve.” Fíli corrects wryly. “There are nomadic dwarven tribes that reside in places so far north that the sun doesn’t rise for months on end. You start getting pretty creative with describing snow at that point.”)

Bilbo laughs, eyes bright and shining with interest. He stumbles over the harder obstruents, but generally takes to the study with all the wit and eagerness of a scholar, repeating the unfamiliar sounds back with meticulous care.

Meanwhile, Thorin thinks of other words he could be teaching him.

_Darling. Dearest. Treasure of treasures. Beloved. Consort. Betrothed. One._

He imagines whispering those words and more into Bilbo’s skin, mapping out his smiles with his lips and exhaling endearments into his collarbone. He imagines Bilbo saying those words back to him, imagines the impossibility of Bilbo meaning them. He thinks of Bilbo shaping his name with breathless abandon, thinks of promises and eternity and saying words like that in front of everyone, declaring it for the whole world to see.

“Azsâlul’abad,” Fíli says then, breaking Thorin out of his thoughts. Bilbo repeats it, slowly, carefully.

“Lonely Mountain,” Kili translates.

Thorin looks up. They’ve reached the mountain. It looms above them, stretching so high the peak is obscured by the snowstorm. The sight still yanks at his stomach, aches somewhere deep inside him for the life he had lost, so long ago.

“Zahrur,” Fíli breathes, reverent, like a prayer.

“Zahrur,” Bilbo echoes dutifully. When no translation comes, he asks, “What does that mean?”

“Home,” Thorin answers, hoarsely.

His hands find his nephews’. They grip on to each other tight.

And despite everything, despite the desolation within and how completely he’d messed everything up the first time and the utter disaster of his courtship now, Thorin finds himself thanking every star in the sky that both his sister’s sons are alive and breathing beside him as they enter Erebor once again. Because at the heart of it all, this was for _them._ This is their legacy, their birthright, their chance to build and prosper and get the life Thorin could never give them in the Blue Mountains. He may be King now, but _they_ are the bright new hope leading them all forward, _they_ are the wiser and the kinder and the more daring, untainted by the ash of his generation, and Thorin can only grip their hands and _thank Mahal_ that they’re here to see it all unfold. He finds himself looking at the members of his Company around him, at Bilbo, who follows them through the wrecked entrance, his own face a clear picture of overwhelmed emotions.

 _We did it,_ he thinks, and the suddenness of their victory hits like a physical blow.

Thorin is built against expecting such things. Even before Erebor was lost, there had always been this sense of impermanence, of inevitable and impending loss; he’s built himself a wall against pain and disappointment because there was no other choice, there was never any hope of lasting peace or genuine success.

But this, this first true, unequivocal victory is possibly the first Thorin has ever allowed himself to feel, and it —

It _hurts_.

It _soars._

It wraps around his insides and pulls, pulls until he’s wrapped in it, until he is leaking tears of glittering sickness and inky regret, until a voice in his ear says _, “Irak’Adad, we’re okay, we’re here, we did it, we’re home now”_ and his breathing hitches and his head goes blindly forward to press, one temple each, to his nephews’ foreheads, as he thinks that maybe all he needed was a hand to grasp, the simple reassurance that he could stop, and the knowledge that home was wherever his loved ones’ voices could be heard.

* * *

They pass through the broken entrance without ceremony, which Thorin is grateful for.

Even by dwarven standards, it’s astounding how quickly they’ve been able to clear the way into the mountain. Everywhere he looks Dáin’s folk are at work, erecting scaffolds and pulley systems to patch up the gaping hole, installing a new gate to fend off the elements yet still allow the masses to pile in. Balin stands in the centre of the chaos, directing people left right and centre, pointing supplies, allocating living spaces, indicating the new healing rooms and dining spaces. Ori trails in his wake, scribbling furiously. Dori and Nori flit around them, acting as guides to the newcomers. High above them, Thorin can just about make out Bifur and Gloin tweaking one of the great sheets of mirrored glass, part of an ingenious system that had once lit Erebor with daylight. Even as he watches, Bifur barks a command, and a number of Ironfoot leap into action below him, pulling on ropes. The mirrors align; clear, pale sunlight beams into the halls, flooding them with light. A cheer goes up. The men spilling into the mountain gaze up in wonder. Bofur lets out a crow of glee, bounding forward immediately to give his brother a hand down.

Taking advantage of the commotion, Fíli and Kíli slide off the cart as soon as the cart stops, lost instantly in the bustle of people and wagons. Óin appears out of nowhere like a vengeful ghost, setting after the boys, barking protests. Thorin exchanges a brief, entirely knowing glance with Dwalin, who sighs, and dives into the crowds after them.

The maelstrom of activity around him is dizzying — so different to the tomb-like, empty shell of a mountain he had entered into last time. It's full of light and movement and the wash of sound, from the dwarves hard at work to the families of men filtering in, to the thrum of voice upon voice tossed out into the endless halls. It’s a hard slap of reality, after the softened edges of memory. A daunting reminder of how much there is still to do. A gentle reminder of how far they had come already.

It’s overwhelming.

Thorin has no perception of leaving the cart himself until the pain in his wounded foot is racing up his side as he stumbles and braces himself on the wall. He doesn’t know where he’s going but he finds himself breaking away from the crowds, climbing, ignoring the abuse shrieking from his wounds as he comes up to stand on the bit of the ramparts that still stands. Where he had stood, before.

Then, it had been a rush of barbed, bittersweet memory and feverish relief and _gold:_ enough gold that his people would never again be forced to choose between a hot meal for their children or a roof over their heads, _gold_ enough that his people would never again sicken and die in the wilderness without aid, _gold_ enough that they would never again have to labour in hostile and foreign villages just to survive. And then it was _gold_ , the pride and skill of his people, _gold,_ the mighty kingdom they had carved with the steadfast devotion of their bare hands, _gold,_ that they had worked in the love of their creator. And then it was just _gold_.

This time, there’s no rush at all.

Thorin turns from the mountain, stares out across the harsh, white landscape. The cold air burns in his lungs. He can feel a wetness creeping across his right foot, but it feels distant, muddled. It doesn’t feel real.

None of it does.

His gaze settles on the rocky outcrop of Ravenhill, just visible through the snow. He feels a strange sense of displacement then— recalls standing on that very clifftop after the battle, staring right back at where he is now. He almost thinks he can see his own figure still standing there, can almost convince himself everything since that moment has been a dream, because that is surely more believable than where he is now.

_“You removed all of your armour before you made a suicidal charge at an orc army with only twelve dwarves at your back. Tell me honestly that was with the expectation of making it back alive.”_

Even in his wildest hopes for triumph, it never actually occurred to Thorin that he would be there to live it afterward. Never entered his mind that he would get to _have_ an _after_.

“Thorin?” Bilbo’s voice finds him up there, edged with frantic worry. Thorin hears his faint footsteps as the hobbit joins him on the opposite side of the rampart. His face is tight and pale. “What are you doing? You shouldn’t be on your feet, Óin’s going to have a _meltdown_ , you should be _resting_ , not gallivanting off to take in the view, let alone _climbing,_ and Valar, your _foot!_ I told you not to put weight on it —”

He keeps talking, a wash of words very little content, highly strung with that brittle edge Bilbo’s temper adopts when confronted by the force of his own care. He hovers just out of arm’s-reach, hands twitching at his sides as though he’s keeping himself from reaching out, as though unsure of his welcome, which is unlike Bilbo.

But then Thorin remembers where they’re standing, and Bilbo’s reticence to stand close to him suddenly makes a terrible, sickening sort of sense.

“You were right,” Thorin says faintly, stemming the hobbit's babbling. He doesn’t look at Bilbo. “When I led the charge from the Mountain. I didn’t think I’d be coming back.”

* * *

The unexpected confession steals all the air from the world, sends time spiralling and stalling to a halt.

Bilbo freezes.

_I didn’t think I’d be coming back._

The wind is stronger up here. It buffets around him, pulling at his clothes and stinging his cheeks with the cold. Beyond the rampart, the blizzard is picking up, flurries of snow transforming the charred landscape into a blanket of white. Bilbo doesn't really care for the view, though. He stands on the opposite end of the walkway from Thorin, and feels very small all of a sudden, very far away from the dwarf in front of him.

_I didn’t think I’d be coming back._

He hears what Thorin doesn’t say, doesn’t need to say.

Thorin looks at him then, finally, and his eyes are glistening. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh Thorin,” Bilbo exhales, because Thorin looks awful, too pale and shadows like bruises under his eyes. Bilbo closes the last bit of distance without thinking now, lays a hand over Thorin’s chest where Azog’s blade had pierced. The touch seems to undo Thorin even more, a short, gasped breath escaping him.

“I’m fine,” Thorin says, but his voice cracks.

Bilbo moves even closer, shifting his hand to rest more firmly against Thorin’s chest.

“You do not apologise for that,” Bilbo says quietly. “What matters is you did come back, and I’m forever thankful that you did.”

Thorin just breathes against him. Under his palm, Bilbo feels a gentle and steady tremor shuddering through Thorin’s frame.

“Come on,” he says. He’ll go back to chipping away at Thorin’s mountain of survivors-guilt when they’re both a little less frayed, and a little less likely to freeze in the middle of a blizzard. “Let’s get inside, before Óin has an aneurism. You’ll have plenty of time to admire the rebuilding efforts later.”

Thorin jerks, head whipping up to stare at him. The transformation from the hollow expression he had been wearing to the wide-eyed wonder now is startling, and Bilbo reels, trying to work out what it was that he’d said to make Thorin look like that.

“Time,” Thorin repeats, almost to himself, and Bilbo thinks _oh._

_I didn’t think I’d be coming back._

For someone who manages to achieve so much on the sheer force of hope, Thorin is abysmal at keeping any for himself. He _expects_ to lose, has been conditioned to believe that no good thing lasts, had not expected or perhaps even _intended_ to survive, but he has, and now there’s that surreal, inevitable question of _what happens now?_

_(We carry on. We start over. We keep going, always, and it will be good, it will be great, I just know it.)_

“Yes, time.” Bilbo says, more bravely than he feels. “All the time in the world, in fact, and we are going to make the best of it.”

The wind picks up, bitterly cold, but Thorin is warm, even more so when he brings his hand up to cover Bilbo’s.

“All the time in the world,” Thorin echoes, and his eyes are still wet but he’s smiling, suddenly, small and heartbreakingly unguarded, and Bilbo feels his chest clench in a love that's nothing short of painful.

 _Spend it with me,_ he thinks suddenly, recklessly. _Ask me to share it with you. Live it by my side. Never leave._

The air swoops between them. Thorin’s hand is so much larger than his, rough and calloused and burning bright points of contact, and Thorin’s chest is _right there,_ rising and falling under his palm, emitting such incredible warmth and safety that Bilbo just wants to burrow into it, and they’re close, so close now Thorin’s hair falls in a curtain between them, shielding them from the outside world, so close that Bilbo can see the way each of Thorin’s eyelashes whisper against his skin, the way his lips part to exhale unsteadily as Bilbo sways helplessly forward —

“Yah bloody MORON!” Dwalin’s voice hollers, and Bilbo and Thorin jump apart. “What in _Mahal faslmaganu zharmur_ do you think y’re _doing_?” Dwalin stands just below the wall, jabbing his finger at the two of them. He’s yelling loud enough now that every dwarf working stops to stare. “Get _down_ from there! Get down right now, y’e _wazzock_! Óin’s gonna _kill_ you! You utter _lulkh!”_

Thorin drags a hand over his face to muffle his groan. “Oh my god.”

Bilbo just laughs helplessly. “Come on,” he manages. “Let’s just make it off the wall, hmm? Before the rest of the mountain comes to see what all the commotion is about.”

“Better yet, just throw me off it, spare me from this mortification,” Thorin mutters.

“Don’t be so dramatic. That’s what we have Fíli and Kíli for.”

“And Glóin.”

“And Dori.”

“Ori even, on a bad day.”

Bilbo snorts. He moves impulsively to duck under Thorin’s arm, on the side on his injured foot, taking his weight when the king wavers on his feet.

“What was it Dwalin called you just now?” Bilbo says, half to distract Thorin from the pain as they start descending the steps, half to keep him from protesting at the help he evidently needs.

“Hmm?” Thorin frowns momentarily. “Oh. _Lulkh.”_

“What does that mean?”

“‘Idiot’.”

Of course. Bilbo hides his smile, making a mental note of it. “And _wazzock?”_

“‘Foolish dwarf'.”

So many useful phrases. “And that thing about Mahal?”

Thorin grimaces. “ _Mahal faslmaganu zharmur._ Mahal’s hairy balls.”

Bilbo can't help it; he laughs out loud at this, a full-on, throwing-his-head-back kind of laughter. Thorin looks so blasé, and at the same time so put-out, that it brings tears of mirth to his eyes.

“I’ll definitely have to remember that one.”

Thorin’s lips twitch. “Not perhaps suitable for polite company.”

“Only yelling at stubborn kings in very public spaces then?”

“Don’t get any ideas.”

Bilbo laughs again, and pretends he doesn’t notice when Thorin presses a little closer to him on the slow, painstaking journey down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All Khuzdul sourced from the great and esteemed Dwarrow Scholar (though I have no idea how many words Dwarves have for snow, that bit was entirely made up for artistic license).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few popular tumblr head-canons sprinkled in here - give me a wave if you spot them!

Óin doesn’t quite have an aneurism when he finds them, but it’s a near thing. He swoops over just as the two of them stumble into the new healing rooms, hissing expletives foul enough that Bilbo doesn’t have to understand Khuzdul to wince at their intended meaning.

Thorin doesn’t reply. He’s getting heavier over Bilbo’s shoulders, and Bilbo struggles to bear his weight as Thorin slumps further into him, head dropping forward to brush unconsciously into Bilbo’s hair.

“ _Foolish, stubborn_ Durin,” Óin finishes his rant as he reaches them, but his hands are ever-careful as they take up Thorin’s other arm and the two of them near-carry him to the nearest bed. Thorin quite literally collapses the moment he’s down, curling on his side around his injuries with a miserable noise.

“Serves you right, for running off, Óin grumbles, but Bilbo knows him well enough now to hear the concern in his voice. He bustles around, snatching vials and ointments from the shelves. “I’m sorry, lad, but I need you to lie back to check your stitches. Drink this too. All of it.”

He presses a cup of a foul smelling liquid into Thorin’s hands and scurries off again. It slips right through Thorin’s grasp. Bilbo darts forward to catch it. He steadies it in Thorin’s hand, helping him drink it, his other hand cupping Thorin’s cheek without thinking. Blues eyes peer up at him, bleary.

“Drink,” Bilbo reminds him gently.

Thorin drinks. It’s evidently as foul tasting as it smells, based on the distaste on Thorin’s face as he forces it down. It’s effective, though. Already, Thorin’s eyelids are drooping, his grip slackening, some of the haggard pain on his face easing.

Bilbo catches the empty cup again when it falls from Thorin’s limp grasp. He sets it aside without looking, folds his fingers back into Thorin’s when they reach for empty air. Bilbo presses his thumb gently into the centre of Thorin's palm, circling lightly.

Thorin sighs, letting his head fall to the pillow. “Bilbo,” he mumbles, but Bilbo shushes him and continues the comforting circles.

“Hush. Sleep. Whatever it is can wait.”

“My foot…”

Oh. Bilbo checks Óin is out of hearing before glancing down, but he can’t see anything behind the new boots Thorin had pulled on that morning to travel in. After walking so far though… he dreads to think what state the injury is in.

“I’ll take care of it,” Bilbo whispers. “The moment Óin’s gone. Alright?”

Thorin only produces a faint hum of gratitude, followed by a yawn and a ragged exhale. A few moments later he’s snoring softly, head lolling and mouth falling open and still spitefully beautiful.

“Master Baggins,” Óin prompts, in an uncharacteristically subdued voice.

Bilbo still jumps guiltily. He moves to let the healer pass, chest clenching at the way Thorin snuffles in his sleep when Bilbo extracts his hand.

“How’s your stitching coming along?” Óin says out of the blue, once he’s cut through Thorin’s shirt and bloodied bandages.

“What — hmm? Bilbo manages faintly, tearing his gaze away from Thorin’s sleeping face.

Óin’s giving him a suspiciously nonchalant look. “Stitching. I saw the work you did on Bifur’s head. Uncommonly neat, that.”

“Oh well, yes.” Bilbo recovers. “He asked, I mean, and I used to help my mother with the embroidery, so—”

“Take over.”

“I’m sorry?”

Óin holds out his needle, gesturing to Thorin’s torso. “You’ve a defter hand than mine, Master Baggins. Mind taking over the last few stitches whilst I see to those rascals of princes?”

“I —”

“Wonderful.” Óin places the needle in Bilbo’s hand with a satisfied look. “I’ll be just next door if you need me.”

“But I don’t…”

“Fresh bandages in the corner, and athelas in the cupboard on your left, if you need it.”

“Why would I need—”

“What’s that lad? You’ll have to speak up.”

_“Óin.”_

“Old ears aren’t what they used to be, you know…”

“Don’t give me that. I _know_ you can hear me, you cantankerous old bastard—”

“Can’t hear y’e, sorry!”

“Óin, no, no where are you going _,_ don’t you dare shut that door—”

Óin shuts the door, leaving Bilbo alone with Thorin. Bilbo gapes after him, mouth opening and closing in silent disbelief.

 _“Dwarves.”_ He mutters darkly.

Thorin, unsurprisingly, doesn’t answer. There’s a little pinch worrying the middle of his forehead. Bilbo smooths it out with his thumb, because why not, there’s no one here to see. He traces the raised edges of the scar that splits one of Thorin’s eyebrows. Thorin mumbles nonsense, turning his head into Bilbo's touch.

It’s almost embarrassing how Bilbo’s vexation disappears almost instantly.

Bilbo sighs, and gets to work, carefully avoiding thinking about all the warm skin under his hands, all the nefarious reasons Óin could have for leaving the two of them alone, and the disturbing realisation that the old healer may not be as oblivious as they had initially thought.

* * *

Though the two weeks since the battle seem to have lasted months on end, time trips away from them once they’re back in the Mountain. Days start passing like hours, weeks like days.

Rebuilding a kingdom is every bit as incredible and difficult and rewarding and altogether stressful as it sounds. Every day brings new challenges, from clearing wreckage to keeping warm to resolving disputes and procuring enough food to eat.

Bilbo can respect the demands of such a task — many of which fall directly to Thorin even as he remains confined to the healing chambers. The demands of rebuilding a kingdom have an unfortunate number of side effects, however: one of which is that it’s virtually _impossible_ now to get Thorin alone to check on his injury, and even when they do they always seem to get interrupted by someone. Mainly Óin at first, but as time goes on more and more members of the Company start happening upon them whenever they’re alone, bringing an endless bout of documents for Thorin to sign off, decisions to make, problems to resolve.

Bilbo never before thought of himself as particularly possessive. The more people that keep walking in on them though, the more he starts to resent anyone stealing Thorin’s time, for whatever valid reason, and realises just how used he is to having Thorin to himself.

“A king’s time is never his own,” Thorin once remarks dryly, after Bilbo glares a particularly irritating dwarf lord out of the room, the fifth person to interrupt them that evening.

“You are _more_ than just a king, though, Thorin,” Bilbo grumbles, and is treated to another one of Thorin’s slack, wondering looks that he can’t read at all.

The only amusing side of all this is that the interruptions mean that they have to keep coming up with more and more ridiculous reasons why Bilbo is sat with the King’s feet in his lap.

“We’re comparing foot sizes.” Thorin says once, when Dwalin walks in on them. “For. Science.”

Beside him, Bilbo makes a sound like he’d just tried to swallow his tongue. Thorin thumps him on the back, and smiles benignly at Dwalin, who retreats muttering something about seeing to something or other on the other side of the mountain.

"It's an ancient Shire pledging of allegiance.” Bilbo explains equably, when Glóin bursts in without knocking. “The ritual of… huckleberry marigold."

"What on _earth_ is the ritual of huckleberry marigold?” Thorin splutters afterward.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Bilbo says. "Glóin didn’t either, though.”

Thorin laughs so hard he falls off the bed.

“Rats!” Bilbo yelps, when Bofur leaps out from behind a curtain, looking triumphant for a split second before his brow creases with confusion.

“What?” He says, nonplussed.

Bilbo seizes the distraction. He holds his hands up, indicating something roughly the size of a house cat. “Rats,” he repeats. “Big ones. Definitely under here.”

He ducks under Thorin’s bed. Bofur’s face appears on the other side.

"Are you feeling alright, Bilbo?"

"Me? Never better. You?"

After the curtain incident, Bilbo starts to suspect there’s something greater afoot here than mere coincidence. He starts watching the other members of the Company a bit more closely, noticing how they frequently gather together, evidently thinking they’re being subtle, whispering furtively and shutting up the moment he or Thorin enter the room. Bilbo might be somewhat concerned about this, apart from the fact that Gandalf is often among them, and though the old wizard has a fondness for mischief Bilbo doubts he’d let them get up to anything truly nefarious.

Thorin hasn’t seemed to notice their strange behaviour at all though, so Bilbo lets them have their fun, reasoning it’ll all come out eventually.

Hilariously, Thorin is a great deal more concerned with Óin, whose impromptu visits are perhaps Bilbo’s favourite. The healer doesn’t even ask anymore when he comes across them in bizarre and compromising positions; he just gets that _look_ on his face. The one that indicates he’s questioning every choice he's ever made that has led him to having to deal with the two of them. Bilbo is fond of the look; only they can bring out that particular vein of pained forbearance.

(Bilbo knows that Thorin is convinced Óin is some sort of all-seeing prophet. Bilbo is still clinging to the opinion that Óin is very busy, half-deaf, and possesses as much subtlety as any dwarf, which is to say, none at all; if Óin knew, _they_ would know. It’s a cause of frequent bickering between them.)

Perhaps the most fascinating encounter is when Balin comes looking for them one day.

“I dropped a bead,” Thorin blurts, after Balin somehow enters the room without either of them noticing and clears his throat, making them both jump. “Bilbo…”

“Is looking for it,” Bilbo finishes smoothly, making a point of shuffling around a bit on his knees and scanning the stone floor.

Perhaps he’s overdoing it a bit, because if anything Balin looks more suspicious now.

“But you’re not missing any beads,” Balin points out, and oh, his eyes aren’t on Bilbo, but on Thorin’s hair (which, of course the elder dwarf would notice that).

Thorin freezes. “Um.”

“It’s a new bead,” Bilbo fills in helpfully. At least, he thinks it’s helpful, but now Thorin’s staring at him with that shocked, slack-jawed expression.

Balin has a sudden and mysterious coughing fit. “And what would you be needing with a new bead, Thorin?”

For some reason, that makes Thorin blush dark, furious red.

“Um.” Thorin says again.

“No reason!” Bilbo squeaks. “His majesty was just showing me. The bead. I asked him, you see—”

Balin’s eyebrows shoot so high they disappear into his hairline. “You _asked him?!”_ he repeats, hushed and shocked.

Thorin makes a small, strained noise that’s bordering on a whimper. “Perhaps this can wait for another time, Balin?”

“Yes, yes, of course, forgive me,” Balin retreats backwards, his eyes twinkling. “I’ll leave you to it.”

No matter how many times Bilbo asks Thorin afterwards, he never explains his or Balin’s reactions that day.

By far the worst and most incriminating encounter, however, is when Gandalf catches them at it.

The wizard had an irritating habit of disappearing just when you needed him most and turning up just at the most inopportune moment, but Bilbo is pretty sure this tops all previous times. Namely because, unlike the baffled dwarves around him who have no idea what to make of it all, Gandalf is _all-too familiar_ with hobbit customs, and knows _exactly_ which of those customs Bilbo is flaunting.

Bilbo doesn’t even realise Gandalf is in the room with them until the wizard is spluttering nonsensically, his eyebrows shooting up and disappearing straight into his hair because —

 _“Bilbo Baggins_ are you _bathing_ the King’s _feet?”_

Bilbo has never heard that quality of booming, outrageous, incredulous _glee_ from Gandalf before, and he’s very, very certain he never wants to hear it again.

There’s no fantastical excuse this time. Gandalf doesn’t even finish before Bilbo is squawking and leaping up in denial and chasing Gandalf out before the wizard can explain to Thorin why he reacted like that and why he’s now laughing incessantly whenever he sees the two of them.

In the end, all of it comes down to the fact that Bilbo is increasingly of the opinion that the universe is against them having a single minute to themselves, and that they are in dire need of a discussion of cultural differences soon before this all gets out of hand.

* * *

Thorin is starting to think that this cultural misunderstanding business is getting far too out of hand.

It’s fortunate, really, that dwarven courtship is such a private affair, else he is certain someone would have mentioned to Bilbo by now that he’s technically engaged to the King of Erebor. It’s only luck (and perhaps some wilful obliviousness on the hobbit’s part) that Bilbo hasn’t found out already.

Still, he knows Bilbo suspects _something_ , and it’s probably only politeness that keeps him from asking straight out.

Thorin is doing his best to keep it all under wraps. Out of respect for Bilbo, for giving the hobbit his space, for the sake of their repairing friendship. Honestly, he thinks he’s been exhibiting a staggering level of restraint so far, not kissing Bilbo at every opportunity and _not_ offering to braid his hair back when Bilbo complains it’s getting too long and _not_ bestowing upon him the beads that would mark him as Thorin’s own so everyone would know it.

Problem is, it really does seem like everyone knows it anyway.

“ _But I’m being so discreet,”_ he laments one night to Dwalin, when he sneaks Thorin in some ale, because Dwalin is an excellent friend. “ _How does everyone know?”_

And then Thorin is reminded that Dwalin is also a terrible friend when he spits out his own ale and guffaws for a solid minute. _(“Yes, Thorin, you were being so discreet giving him that mithril worth half the fucking mountain.”)_

Evidently they do things differently in the Shire though, because Bilbo does genuinely seem unaware that the garment he wears is worth more than his entire homeland. Thorin can’t decide whether he’s hopelessly relieved or maddeningly frustrated that the meaning of such things is utterly lost on the hobbit.

As far as cultural misunderstandings go, perhaps the funniest is Bilbo burgeoning use of Khuzdul.

His nephews have taken to continuing Bilbo’s lessons in Thorin’s chambers, graciously offered after Thorin moved in and then complained they were having all the fun without him.

_(The royal chambers are too quiet, too empty and imposing after the humble ebb and flow of the healing quarters. There’s too much of his grandfather in here, too many reminders of how isolating and overreaching the throne can become, how his position must always set him apart.)_

The three of them are sprawled on the floor by the fire whilst Thorin works through the pile of dossiers from his sickbed, signing off this repair and that worker’s fee and that bit to land to that lord. It’s mind-numbingly dull. Bilbo's attempts to learn their language are far more entertaining.

“…and you use _this_ word for ‘I’ if you were high royalty.” Fíli finishes.

Fíli and Kíli have just gotten onto teaching Bilbo varying levels of status pronouns, and really, Thorin should have seen this coming, giving the hobbit spent most of the quest snarking at _actual_ royalty.

“Perfect.” Bilbo says immediately. “That’s what I’m using from now on.”

“No, you would use the neutral ‘I’,” Kíli explains patiently.

Thorin pities him. His youngest nephew clearly hasn’t grasped much about Bilbo’s character at all, if he thinks Bilbo is doing anything but wilfully misunderstanding for his own purposes.

“I’m going to use the royal one.” Bilbo persists.

Fíli just rolls his eyes. “Fine. You do that,” he says, unconcerned, evidently assuming there’s no way Bilbo will actually follow through with it.

Thorin pities him too. On a scale from saving him from decapitation to breaking them out of prison in barrels, underestimating Bilbo had never gone well in the past, and Thorin is ninety-percent sure they’re both going to regret it at some point.

He gets his moment sooner than he thinks.

Thorin’s limping into the room adjacent to his chambers that they’ve been using for council meetings, when he hears Bilbo say, in perfect Khuzdul to one of the dwarven lords: _“// I, the exalted one, bid you good morning // ”_

Thorin stops dead in the doorway, pinching the bridge of his nose to hide his smile. _Do not laugh,_ he tells himself sternly. _Do not laugh or Bilbo will be insulting dwarven high lords until the end of time, and you’ll never be able to talk him out of it._

The lord splutters, looking wildly out of his depth. At Bilbo’s side, Balin makes an odd, strangled noise.

“Bilbo,” he says, shocked. “Since when have you been using the royal ‘I'?”

“Oh Mahal,” Fíli says faintly, whilst Kíli buries his hysterical laughter in his glass of water.

Bilbo spots Thorin then, takes in his expression, and mirth glints in his eyes. _“// Greetings, lowly one // ”_

 _“ // Your highness. // ”_ Thorin deadpans.

The lord makes a small _meep_ sound, looking all for that he’s considering throwing himself under the table rather than risk Thorin’s wrath. Kíli’s cackling now. Balin just groans, and sits down heavily in his chair.

“Shall we get on with today’s agenda?” One of the other dwarf lords ventures uncertainly.

“Please _god_.” Balin says emphatically.

Bilbo winks at Thorin across the table, and Thorin tries and fails to stifle his snort.

Of course, denying Bilbo’s illustrious status as royal consort-to-be is hardly helped by the fact he goes around addressing everyone with the neutral form of address as only dwarven royalty would, but that’s hardly Thorin’s fault. Fíli and Kíli are his teachers.

Well, Fíli is taking it seriously.

 _“ // And also, kiss my axe. // ”_ Bilbo says pleasantly to Dáin once, as Thorin rounds the corner into the dining hall.

At his side, Fíli’s face drops with horror. “ _Bilbo_!” He gasps.

To his credit, Dáin only looks perplexed and a tad amused. “I’m… going to fetch you some more food, and maybe that will cheer y’e up, hmm?”

Bilbo beams. _“// Thank you, asshole // ”_

Fíli whimpers, looking just short of leaping between them to shield Bilbo with his own body. “Bilbo. You know that those phrases… they’re, ah, a little bit more offensive than perhaps you think they are.”

Bilbo frowns, honestly perplexed. “But Kíli said…” then he trails off as realisation alights both of their faces.

 _“Kíli!”_ Fíli yells, and distantly there’s the sound of rapid retreating footsteps and Kíli’s manic laughter as his brother chases after him on crutches.

Thorin’s still chucking at the memory for days after.

Of course, not all of their cultural mishaps can be made so light of.

Thorin knows the proposal will come to light sooner or later, and it should really, _really_ come from him. He needs to tell Bilbo all of it. What it means, how he feels, his overriding fear over this whole business and his hopes for the two of them, and then he’ll let Bilbo decide.

Because however bad telling Bilbo could be, the alternative hurts worse than he can begin to comprehend; because that alternative is that the proposal _doesn’t_ come to light, _never_ comes to light, and Bilbo _leaves_. Bilbo goes home, to his books and his armchair and his garden, and Thorin never gets the chance to tell him — never gets to give him a choice.

Bilbo deserves to have that. And Thorin needs to give it to him before it’s too late, because he knows in his heart that Bilbo will leave. It may not be today, it may not be for years, but Bilbo _will_ leave. No one who speaks of home the way he does will be content to stay away forever.

Yet every time Thorin gets close to telling him over the next few weeks, he can’t do it. The words clamp around his heart, stall on his lips, or someone interrupts, or Bilbo looks at him with tender, curious eyes, and Thorin is lost — lost in the fear of losing what they already have.

_You need to tell him._

No one’s said it, but Thorin hears it anyway. In Balin’s silent judgement and Dwalin’s less silent exasperation, in everyone’s confusion as to why the two of them don’t seem to be advancing the courtship further.

 _Not yet_ , Thorin thinks desperately, as he clings to these moments of blissful ignorance. _Not yet._

* * *

Dwalin thumps his head on the table and leaves it there. “For fuck’s sake. Just run me through right now. It’d be less painful than having to listen to another botched half-confession of love from my king to an oblivious hobbit.”

“I think it’s romantic,” Dori argues, whilst Ori surreptitiously steals a sip of Dwalin’s mead.

“Are you kidding?” Fíli says dubiously. “Thorin is _so_ bad at this. It’s no wonder he never married.”

“He proposed to Bilbo with the wealthiest item in the mountain whilst in the throes of Dragon sickness.” Kíli defends valiantly. “How much _more_ romantic do you want?”

“He called it a ‘ _token of our friendship’.”_ Fíli points out, bringing out the air quotes.

Kíli weighs this up for a long second, then slumps. “Mahal wept. You’re right. He’s hopeless.”

“I will shag everyone in this Mountain if it would get them together.” Bofur announces. “I mean it. I'll shag a man. I'll shag an elf. Find me an elf. I’ll do it right now.”

“I think Kíli's got that one covered, don’t you?” Nori says mildly.

Kíli chokes on his mead. His brother cackles.

Dwalin just groans pitifully, the sound muffled into the table. “If I have to deal with those two making doe-eyes at each other for one more day…”

“All in time, brother,” Balin says, patting his shoulder consolingly.

Dwalin turns his head to glare at him. “No. One more day and I’ll knock them _both_ in the head.”

“You may not have to,” Bombur inserts, and points.

On the other side of the dining hall, Thorin is limping past the open door, and Bilbo is following in his wake, gesturing exaggeratedly and demanding that Thorin _sit down this instance,_ and moments later Óin is seen storming after the both of them, red-faced and yelling and wielding his ear trumpet like a weapon of war.

The Company stare at the scene. The dining hall has gone utterly silent in their wake.

“I need another drink,” Dwalin proclaims flatly, and gets up with a great scrape of the wooden bench whilst the other members excitedly bend their heads together and start placing wagers anew.

* * *

October becomes November without them noticing. It sneaks past them — nestled somewhere between late-night remedial visits and Khuzdul lessons and endless council meetings.

Thorin is getting better.

Bilbo sees it in the way he moves now without stiffness or pain, can laugh without pulling his stitches, can limp around without wincing every time he puts weight on his right foot.

He sees it in the way Thorin no longer flinches when he hears the susurrus of shifting gold, the way he can size up the treasure hoard with dispassionate, practical eyes and starts incrementally losing the fear in his eyes whenever he talks about it.

He sees it in the way Thorin stops looking at his nephews as though they might disappear at any moment, the way he stops looking at the mountain like he’s not quite convinced it’s real, the way he starts looking upon the repairs with hope rather than grim resignation.

(The way he dons his crown one day — not the grandiose gold of his grandfather’s, but a new one, crafted from mithril and obsidian in clean, stark lines — and Bilbo feels his breath leave him, because Erebor may be born from fire and gold but Thorin is shadow and silver, rugged and unadorned but for the crown and the beads in his hair, one hand resting lightly on the pommel of his sword, kingship settling on his shoulders, and he looks so _right,_ like all the parts of himself have finally aligned.)

Perhaps that’s it: not just the healing of battle wounds, but the gradual shift into accepting his own survival and place in the world being built around him.

As the weeks pass, Bilbo starts wondering whether he should stop coming to check on him, tending an injury that is becoming little more than an impressive bruise and stiff joints. A month ago he would have been overjoyed at the sight of Thorin healed and whole.

Now, the thought of it only invokes a whole host of emotions Bilbo hasn’t felt since he’d run out his front door, all those months ago. That feeling of being torn in two. The irrepressible knowledge that something special is slipping through his fingers, and if he doesn’t act soon he’ll lose it for good.

Bilbo doesn’t think he has it in him to lose Thorin again. But neither can he deny the tiny voice inside that yearns for greener things, for familiar things, that says he doesn’t belong here.

_Where do you belong, child of the kindly west?_

Right now he has an excuse to stay untouched by moral complexity, and that saves him from having to make a decision just yet between one home and another.

So every day that Thorin’s wound heals, Bilbo keeps coming and tending to it anyway, pulling out far more tenuous and far less clinical reasons to justify his visits, and puts the matter of home out of his mind.

* * *

November is the season of twilight, of purple skies and wild, winter winds and steaming tea softening the chill of lengthening nights.

Thorin remembers winters like this.

In some ways, the winter is the only thing left that still feels familiar, that remains unchanged in the long years since he called Erebor his home.

Winter in Erebor was snow glittering with the fading light, mist rolling down from the high peaks, storms howling outside the thick walls of the mountain. Sparring with Dwalin until the sun was long gone from the sky, until the only light was from the braziers spitting embers into the snow. Stoking the great forges so that the stone was always warm to the touch even when temperatures outside dropped to freezing. Drilling combat forms one day and the whole thing devolving into a snowball fight with his siblings who had snuck out to watch. Spending afternoons with his father when the weather kept them inside, learning that real kingship is at heart service and submission, and that his people should govern him as much as he governs them. Dís stealing him away from his duties the way only a princess could get away with, dragging him out when night fell to see the stars. Pestering him until he told her their names, even though she knew all their stories by heart by then anyway.

Watching that very same last moon of autumn eclipse the sky every year, and over the Durin’s day festivities being enveloped by the deep and steadfast knowledge that Thorin was where he belonged.

* * *

“It doesn’t feel like home.” Thorin admits to Bilbo once, a rare evening when no one interrupts them at all. “At least, not how I remember it. I thought it would, when we started rebuilding, but…”

He trails off, looking troubled.

Bilbo rubs his thumb over Thorin’s ankle, if only because it seems to calm Thorin and hobbits are never ones to deny themselves simple pleasures. The bandages are gone now, and Bilbo thinks he can no longer pretend there’s any need for them. There’s nothing left but a scar and a substantial purple bruise, spilling across Thorin’s foot like an ink splotch.

“Well, when you think of home, what do you think of?” Bilbo ventures.

“…Erebor.”

“But what about it? Simple things. Specific things.”

Thorin just looks at him, confused.

“When I think of home, I don’t think of the Shire, per se. I think of… of the smell of baking on a lazy morning, fresh parchment on my father’s old writing desk, my books, smoking a pipe in my garden, the way the canola fields look outside my window…” Bilbo stops suddenly, caught by surprise by the twinge in his heart, the unexpected force of his own longing.

Opposite him, Thorin’s expression has gone still and searching, hanging onto every word Bilbo is saying with something that looks a bit like want and a bit like sadness.

“What do you think of?” Bilbo presses, because avoiding his emotions is what he does best.

Thorin sighs, indulging him. “Warm stone. The hum of work and song. The smell of silver in my forge and green halls filled with light.

Bilbo smiles. “What else?”

“A comfortable bed. Sleeping through the night. Training with the guard at dawn. The way the mountain looks in the last moments of sun, like a beacon in the sky. Feasts in the great hall, roaring fires, music, dancing. None of my people going hungry.”

Thorin stops abruptly, running out of words.

“Now.” Bilbo says. " _That_ we can work with.”

* * *

The next day, Bilbo leads him by the hand to the hall of kings as the sun sets, where Thorin finds the space has been transformed. Dining tables have been pushed to the side to allow space in the centre, and there is food on every surface and great fires lit on every wall, and Bofur has found a fiddle somewhere and people are dancing, men and dwarves together, and the last purples and oranges from the setting sun flood in off the mirrors and bathe them all in brighter colours, and it’s all warmth and light and laughter and so, so much better than the cold, stately dinners of his grandfather’s hall.

“Alright?” Bilbo says nervously, when Thorin only stares, overwhelmed.

“You did this?” He croaks.

“The Company helped, but yes, it was my idea.” Bilbo fidgets. “Do you. Are you mad?”

“Mad?” Thorin breathes. “No, Bilbo. No.” He turns, unable to help himself, threads his hand to cup Bilbo’s neck and leans down to press their foreheads together. He closes his eyes, breathing unsteadily in the space between them. “I am blessed.”

Bilbo slumps with obvious relief. His hands come up hesitantly to touch Thorin’s forearms in return, and they stay there for a long moment, breathing against each other.

“Do hobbits dance?” Thorin asks, after a while without moving.

He feels Bilbo’s silent laugh. “Do dwarves carve stone?” He returns.

Thorin smiles, and wonders at this feeling of joy in his chest, wonders how it is possible to feel so much joy in a single moment. “Dance with me.”

Bilbo tenses for a moment, pulling back to better read Thorin’s expression. “Are you — are you sure?”

“Unless you would rather not—”

“No, I mean, yes, I would,” Bilbo stammers, going faintly pink. “I would love to. Dance. With you. Together.”

Thorin raises an eyebrow, amused at Bilbo’s fluster, and wordlessly offers his hand. For a fleeting, indecipherable moment, Bilbo’s expression changes to a very vulnerable one. He looks as if he might say something, but then seems to decide against it. His hand slides into Thorin’s, and the two of them slip among the couples already dancing, and any questions of belonging Thorin might have had are completely forgotten.

* * *

December is fresh powder and bare branches, crystal clear nights and dazzling sunlight in whorls of ice.

Thorin’s head spins with trade agreements and construction plans. The first few months were always going to be the hardest, trying to carve out a fully functioning kingdom from the ruins of one, and it is hard, it feels _impossible_ at times, but Thorin still finds moments to cherish in it all the same.

Watching friendships bloom between races, through the sharing of honest work and good food and the telling of tales in the evenings. 

Witnessing Bilbo regularly take council with kings and wizards and dwarven lords without a flail or an awkward laugh in sight, and thinking that kind of confidence looks appallingly good on Bilbo.

Seeing Fíli step up and start taking a stronger stance in meetings with Thorin’s ministers, handling the conservative dwarven lords with enviable charm, coming up with quiet solutions that no one else had thought of and generally adding this little thing called _compassion_ into their meetings when they risk becoming buried in practicalities.

Seeing the devotion of his Company in every part of the Mountain’s progress. Seeing their pride and happiness and wonder at the lives they are all building for themselves. Gathering together again in the evenings to hear about it — Bifur's delight in making toys for the children of men, Ori’s excited babbling about the latest ancient tome he’s found in the library, Bofur’s satisfaction at washing off the mining dust every night, Dori’s glee at finally having some decent material to clothe them all in.

Bilbo making vague excuses one day and disappearing with Bombur, then turning up to their usual evening confab with a basket of fresh sweet cakes smuggled under his arm.

“Mahal wept,” Thorin says, already mid-through his second cake. “Forget burgling. Why didn't we sign you on to cook?”

“You were off to reclaim your mountain, and dragons can’t be bribed with baked goods,” Bilbo reminds him, but he looks pleased as he helps himself to one as well.

“The dragon’s dead. I’m re-hiring you. Balin will write up another contract.”

Bilbo just laughs, and Thorin doesn’t mention that he’s half serious about the contract.

All of them getting staggeringly drunk one night in the royal chambers, sprawled in front of the old fireplace and steadily losing any scrap of sense to dwarven spirits. Bilbo holds his own admirably until he doesn’t, when he flushes a deep pink, slides off the couch to rest his head against Thorin’s knee, and starts mumbling nonsense.

“I get the aesthetic, alright. But why, in all your lovely dwarven design — why are there so many — _so many! —_ stairs and NO HANDRAILS in this mountain? I will trip _once_ and—” Bilbo trails off, makes a long descending whistling noise, followed by a splat.

“An honourable death.” Dwalin deadpans.

Everyone cracks up, doubled over with snorts and hiccuping laughter.

An hour later, Bilbo’s head is still on Thorin’s knee, and his prattling is getting progressively sleepier and emotional.

“I love dwarves. I. I _love them._ I can’t even. Can’t articulate it. They are so brave. So… _compact._ So _strong_. They can sling you over their shoulder like a sack of potatoes. They sing and it sounds like… like the sound the _world_ makes, at its centre. They spend their whole lives looking for beauty in dark places. They like rocks. They are kind. They like shiny things. I love them. So much.”

Ori is transcribing all this with utter seriousness. Balin is getting weepy. Thorin is evidently more drunk than he thought he was, petting Bilbo’s hair with a little smile on his face as the hobbit repeats his sentiments in a variety of combinations and lucidity, and Thorin wishes it were possible to capture a moment in time and stay there.

He hopes he still has this when the winter ends. He hopes he gets to have more moments just like these — years of them, of rebuilding and sweet cakes and Bilbo’s head getting heavier on his knee — because that would mean he could stop looking at Bilbo and wondering when he will leave.

He hopes he doesn’t lose this.

He hopes the spring doesn’t take him away.

* * *

Bilbo didn’t think it was possible for the temperature to drop any lower, but January proves him wrong.

He has never experienced such a winter. The roaring winds, the harsh landscape, the blinding _white_ of new-fallen snow on crisp mornings. There’s a savage sort of beauty in it though, a wildness that sings in his blood — a freshness too, like the world is being born again.

He spends hours staring at it, breathing in the stark, chilled air, in awe of the scale and ferocity of it.

He also spends hours huddled by the fire with a mug of tea warming his stiff fingers — particularly the fires in the kitchens, which is perhaps the warmest place Bilbo has found in the Mountain. It’s there that he finds Gandalf one night, when he comes down for his late brew. The wizard is already sat with a steaming pot. He pours a second cup as Bilbo enters, making him wonder whether Gandalf knew he was coming.

He decides quickly it doesn’t matter; the tea is hot, the company is good, and Bilbo accepts both gratefully. He yawns a greeting and sits down, drinking the tea probably faster than he should. That's when he expertly deduces that Gandalf is waiting for him to speak, because he would have almost certainly commented on Bilbo downing tea like it was hard liquor otherwise.

Thing is, he isn’t sure where to start.

“It’ll be spring soon,” Bilbo says eventually, once he’s halfway through his second mug.

Gandalf’s eyes twinkle, as though he knows exactly where Bilbo is going with this. “Yes.”

“The roads will clear. People will be able to travel again.”

“Yes.”

Bilbo stops then, his courage wavering.

“I will be in a position to escort you back to Shire, should that be your wish,” Gandalf says nonchalantly.

Bilbo takes another hasty sip of tea, scalding his mouth. Because that’s the crux of this whole matter, isn’t it. The winter is beautiful. This landscape is wild and breathtaking, and the mountain is epic and ancient and surprisingly cosy, full of laughter and warmth and Thorin’s smiles, but it’s not his home.

But then, Bilbo’s not entirely sure the Shire is his home anymore, either.

He doesn’t want his old, tidy little life, not exactly, and he doesn’t want those empty rooms, however familiar they are, and coming home each night to an empty house just to wake up and live the same placid day over and again. But he wants bits of it, like living in one place long enough that you can see yourself in the walls, in the little bumps and nicks, in the books you own and the tea-stains on the table and the chair his father used to read to him in. Like knowing the way home by heart, like being surrounded by people who are like him, even if they don’t understand the core of him half as well as his dwarves do. Like being able to walk around and see the last fifty years of his life in everything around him, memories and journeys and little familiarities stepping into his heart like old friends.

He wants all that, but Bilbo has a half-cold cup of tea and a tug in his chest that feels a bit like grief at the thought of leaving all this behind.

“I don’t know what I wish,” Bilbo admits. “I’m a hobbit. Yavanna, I’m a _Baggins_. I belong in the Shire. But…”

“You are also a Took,” Gandalf remarks lightly, with a faint hint of mirth. Bilbo rolls his eyes, reminded of their conversation back in Bag End.

“Yes, thank you, I’m aware of that.”

“Did you know, that —”

“If you’re going to tell me the story of my great-great-grand-uncle again, Gandalf…”

Gandalf lowers his thick brows at him. Bilbo waves his hand resignedly. “Sorry. Please. Do go on.”

“Did you know that your _mother,_ Belladonna Took, caused quite the scandal when she proposed to your father?”

Bilbo sighs, because of course he knows. It’s _his_ family history, and he is part of a culture that’s neurotic about bloodlines, family ties, and gossip. Every child in the Shire could probably recite the tale.

“Yes —”

“Well she did!” Gandalf exclaims anyway, because he is a purveyor of exposition. “A Baggins marry a Took. Both families were in uproar. Twas unheard of. _A Took cannot belong with the Bagginses,_ they said, _and a Baggins is no Took._ Do you know what your mother said?”

Bilbo frowns, because he doesn’t remember this part of the story. He shakes his head, his tea now abandoned.

Gandalf’s voice softens. “‘ _A Took may not belong with the Bagginses, but I belong with Bungo, and wherever he is, there I too will find home.’”_

Bilbo’s throat closes up completely. The old grief yawns in his heart, as keen as the day he lost her, and to his surprise he feels tears burn in his eyes. He always manages to forget that Gandalf had known his mother so well.

“I miss her.”

Bilbo hadn’t realised he had said the words out loud until Gandalf is placing his large, gnarled hand on top of his.

“She would be proud, I think, of the hobbit you have become.”

“Proud is one word for it.” Bilbo laughs, a tad shakily. “She would be beating my head in for this whole mess with Thorin.”

“I had wondered whether the King was quite as aware of the… _implications_ of what I witnessed,” Gandalf allows, in a way that suggests he’s finding the whole thing outrageously entertaining.

Bilbo gives him a half-hearted glare. “You know, I would appreciate it if you and the Company didn’t all assume I was sleeping with the King.”

"Nobody’s saying that, dear Bilbo. We’re just giving each other significant glances and placing an obscene amount of money on the finer details of it.”

Bilbo rolls his eyes and gives up. He pushes his mug back and forth between his hands, leeching the last of the warm from it. “You think I should stay in Erebor.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“Well I should like to hear it all the same.”

Gandalf regards him for a long moment, in that faintly unsettling all-seeing manner he has. “To help Thorin take back his home, you had to give up yours, however temporarily.”

“…Right?”

“You left behind everything you had ever known, but it was worth the risk because, at that point, you had little to lose that you could not come back to, in the end. Now however, you have far more to lose by making a similar decision, for it is not merely land and effects you would be leaving behind this time.”

“Thorin,” Bilbo states. “The Company. My friends.”

Gandalf inclines his head. “I told you once that the world isn’t in your books and maps, did I not?”

“ _‘It’s out there’_ ,” Bilbo quotes, dryly. “Yes, you do have a fondness for turning a phrase.”

“Well I have another for you, if you would deign to hear it. Home, Bilbo, isn’t in your house and possessions, in wood and bricks and mortar; it’s right here.”

To his immense surprise, the wizard cups Bilbo’s face with one of his large, aged hands, and when he looks into Gandalf’s eyes, he sees a steady and overwhelming fondness. “With the people who love and understand and cherish you.”

Bilbo swallows hard, feeling very young, all of a sudden, vulnerable, even more at a loss in general, but strangely touched.

“Thank you, old friend,” he manages.

Gandalf only smiles, and pours him a fresh cup of tea, and they speak no more on the subject.

* * *

Finding a time to tell Thorin that he’s staying proves more difficult than Bilbo anticipated.

Thorin never _asked_ him to stay, after all, and though circumstances made asking permission somewhat redundant after the battle, it’s different now that Bilbo no longer needs (or is needed) to stay. Particularly as Bilbo is trying to ask Thorin if he wouldn’t mind Bilbo maybe, just, _staying forever,_ and that sort of question tends to lead on to questions of _why,_ and confessions of undying devotion that Bilbo doesn’t think he can just slip into casual conversation.

Then, of course, there’s the added complication of the whole feet debacle to factor in.

Other than a wizard’s meddling, Bilbo had rather thought that the scandal of him having his wicked way with Thorin’s feet was safe, now that said foot was largely healed and hobbit customs thankfully remain a mystery to dwarves.

Unfortunately, he should have really remembered that not _all_ of his friends are dwarves.

“May I ask a personal question?” Tauriel says out of the blue, during one of their late-night strolls up through the mountain to see the stars.

“Of course,” Bilbo grants easily. “Ask away.”

Famous last words.

“Kíli mentioned to me a peculiar act that the Company has witnessed on several occasions between you and the king. He and the other dwarves seem quite stumped by it."

Bilbo stops dead. “Oh,” he breathes.

“The elves are under the impression that hobbits consider feet to be a rather private and intimate business.” Tauriel continues idly. “Is this not the case?”

Bilbo wonders whether there is perhaps another dragon or warg lurking around still that could eat him right about now. It would surely be preferable to this utter mortification.

“Um.” He manages.

“Or, am I to congratulate you, then, on your betrothal?”

Bilbo makes a pathetic, squeaking sound that he will definitely deny making later. He casts a look frantically around to check no one is around to hear. Damn it all; where is a rampaging warg when you need one?

“For hobbits do restrict such behaviour to their spouses, do they not?” Tauriel muses, head tilted curiously.

_Oh dear Eru Ilúvatar above._

“ _Please_ don’t tell anyone,” Bilbo bursts out breathlessly, and then it all comes tumbling out — the whole story, from the moment Bilbo first discovered the injury.

“They don’t know,” he finishes, “none of them do, not even Thorin — they don’t know what it means to a hobbit, and it’s different for dwarves — it doesn’t mean anything to them. It doesn’t _have_ to mean anything. I was just… his foot was injured, and he was being _idiotic_ about having it treated, so I’ve been helping with it… and now… just please don’t tell anyone.”

The whole thing was said in nearly one breath, and now Bilbo gulps in air, feeling thoroughly wrung out.

Tauriel’s face hasn’t shifted much from quietly bemused during the entire tirade, but now it softens with sympathy. “Of course, if that is your wish. I shall not expose the meaning of your actions.”

“Thank you,” Bilbo says profusely. “Truly.”

“I would ask though, if I may,” Tauriel adds, “why you would want to keep this from Thorin, when you are in love with him?”

Bilbo stares at her. Tauriel blinks back.

“Okay,” Bilbo says, at length. “Okay. No more strolling tonight. Come on; we’re going to get a drink, because I’m not having this conversation sober if I can possibly help it.”

* * *

His other friends are less tactful in their approach.

“So. How’s wooing your dwarf king going?” Bard asks casually, barely five minutes into one of their regular cups of tea in Bard’s living quarters.

Bilbo inhales his mouthful of tea so quickly he coughs and splutters for a solid minute.

He thinks about denying it for about five seconds, then decides it isn’t worth it. He lets out a sort of half-grunt, half-sigh to encompass just how _terribly_ _it’s going, thank you very much_ , flapping his hand to elucidate every bit of exasperation he’s been bottling up over the past few weeks.

Bard looks like he’s just shy of laughing, but respects Bilbo too much to do it to his face. “That good, huh?”

And again, just as with Tauriel, the pressure of keeping it all a secret for so long and now the relief of someone _knowing_ has Bilbo confiding practically the whole business to Bard right there and then.

“It’s ironic,” Bilbo sighs afterwards. “I’m practically waving marriage in his face by hobbit customs, but he doesn’t have the first idea.”

“Dwarvish customs are different.” Bard offers, as though Bilbo isn’t hyper-aware of that particular fact. “Maybe you should try something more obvious.”

“Like what? I’ve prepared him food by my hand, fed him from my plate, danced with him at social events and walked with him in the evenings…” Handled his foot in a risqué hobbit variant of foreplay “…What’s obvious to a dwarf?”

“This sounds like something you should be asking a dwarf.”

“Ha. No. How about _you_ ask a dwarf?”

“I’m not the one with an entire Company of them at my disposal,” Bard says pointedly.

“That Company is almost certainly placing bets on every part of this, and I am not giving them the satisfaction of discovering my vast and deplorable ignorance.”

“It sounds to me like you’re making this a lot harder than it needs to be.”

“Not the point.”

“It’s kind of the point.”

_“Bard.”_

Bard sighs, relenting. “Alright. Well, how did you earn Thorin’s trust the first time? Break down the cultural barrier?”

"I jumped atop an orc about to behead him and stabbed it a few times.”

“…I’m not entirely sure that’ll work in this scenario.”

“Perhaps not, no.”

Bilbo never thought he’d find himself missing those times of peril and running and screaming, but it _was_ true that near-death experiences historically had a high success rate with bringing him and Thorin closer. Maybe there was a stray orc hiding around somewhere Bilbo could poke with a stick.

“I have a suggestion.” Bard says. “It’s a bit out there, but… have you tried just, maybe, telling him how you feel?”

Bilbo perks up. “With flowers?”

“…No.”

“With food?”

“I’m not… entirely sure how you would express that with food, but no. I mean just, literally, tell him.”

Bilbo stares. “Tell him.”

“It’s what men do.”

“Well. That sounds awful and uncouth and terrifying.”

“Coming from the hobbit who faced a dragon.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t in _love_ with the dragon now, was I?” Bilbo points out. “The stakes are entirely different. If it goes wrong with Thorin, I could stand to lose _everything._ With Smaug, there was only the risk of death and destruction and minor trauma if it went awry.”

From the look on Bard’s face, that wasn’t perhaps the point he had been trying to make.

* * *

“I don’t _believe_ this!” Bofur exclaims.

The Company has gathered: chairs are drawn up, pipes are lit, and the extensive record of the ongoing betting pool is smoothed out on the table. It covers nearly six feet of parchment now.

Bofur is the last person to arrive. He flings the door shut behind him, continuing, “I’ve just come from a meeting with the master builders. Thorin was discussing _plants_.”

“Plants?” Nori repeats, baffled.

“ _Baby_ plants.” Bofur stresses. “He wants _baby_ plants. Thorin. Warrior King of Carven Stone. Wants _baby plants_ in his Mountain.”

“The Shire did have a lot of plants,” Ori offers weakly.

Bofur throws his hands up in a gesture of utter despair, and slumps into his chair. They all stare morosely at the parchment.

By the end of February, their not-so-secret Company meetings have now evolved from placing harmless bets about Thorin and Bilbo’s relationship into full-on debriefs and scheming. This is largely due to the fact that even the most far-fetched theories and speculation don’t seem to come close to comprehending what is evidently the most absurd courtship ever. 

“Any development on Bilbo?” Dori asks tentatively into the silence.

“Still wearing the mithril, but no beads yet.” Balin notes. “The feet thing seems to have stopped, whatever _that_ was all about, though he still spends most evenings in Thorin’s chambers.”

Bombur leans forward. “You think they’re…”

“I think if they _were_ , we’d have caught them at it by now.” Balin says candidly. "We’ve certainly burst in on them unexpectedly enough times. And I know I’m not the only one who can pick up on that particular kind of _tension_ between them.”

Everyone groans.

“This is getting ridiculous,” announces Dwalin flatly. “One minute they’re acting like they’re already married, the next it’s like they’re not even courting at all.”

“Thorin looks like he wants to throw himself off the mountain if anyone so much as _mentions_ the mithril,” Fíli agrees.

“And Bilbo’s being strangely tight-lipped about hobbit customs all of a sudden,” Kíli adds.

“Yet he acts more like a consort every day.”

“He’s been helping Thorin with _tax policy_ , and _enjoying_ it.”

“Thorin’s been stealthily giving Bilbo his clothing, as if anyone _needs_ reminding he’s taken.”

“And then only yesterday I found them asleep together in front of the fire,” Kíli finishes.

“Like… _together_ together?” Dori asks excitedly.

“Well, they weren’t actually touching,” Kíli admits, “but still. They were all… curled up towards each other on the couch. I don’t think they meant to fall asleep, but even so… I didn’t know Thorin was _capable_ of sleeping that deeply. They didn’t even stir when I knocked.”

Dwalin makes a sound of pure frustration. “Something has to be done about this.”

“Oh, I’m all ears for any suggestions,” Balin says, holding up his hands, “especially if they’ll stop the King from staring wistfully in Bilbo’s general direction and sighing dramatically about _What Can Never Be_ during council meetings.”

“…But, they _are_ courting, right?” Ori says uncertainly. “They must be courting."

“Normal people don’t court like this.” Nori mutters.

“What does hobbit courting look like anyway?” Dori throws out.

The Company dissolves into low-level bickering. It goes on until Fíli raises his voice with:

“Has anyone considered the possibility that Bilbo doesn’t _know_ he’s being courted?”

Silence. All of them glance shiftily at one another.

“But… it’s _mithril_ ,” Bofur says eventually, sounding bewildered. “It’s _obviously_ a courting gift.”

“To a dwarf,” Fili points out. “But to a hobbit?”

More silence.

“So, one of us tells him.” Dwalin says. “Problem solved.”

“It is not our way to interfere with another’s courtship.” Balin reprimands automatically, but even he looks uncertain.

"Even if the two people courting are the _biggest morons_ in Middle Earth?” Dwalin shoots back.

Balin doesn’t rise to his brother’s jibe. His brow furrows in contemplation. “What we need is a way of making the situation obvious to Bilbo without explicitly telling him. Something that might provoke the discussion between him and Thorin.”

“How do we do that?” Bifur asks.

Fíli and Kíli exchange a sudden glance of perfect understanding.

“Hey Kíli,” Fíli says, nonchalantly, “didn’t you just finish your courting gift for Tauriel?”

Kíli grins.

* * *

It’s well into March before things come to a head.

Thorin is sharpening Orcist when Bilbo enters his chambers, wielding the whetstone with a silent and savage determination.

“Permission to enter the armoury?” Bilbo asks dryly, hovering at the door.

Thorin merely grunts, but doesn’t immediately snap at him to leave, which is good enough for Bilbo.

He crosses the room, places the papers in his hands carefully on Thorin’s desk. “Balin sent me,” he begins, when Thorin makes no move to break the silence. “To ask, about those new mines that have opened up? He said that—”

“Fine.” Thorin says distractedly, without looking up. “Tell him yes. I’ll back whatever decision he makes.”

“I — alright then.” Bilbo lapses into silence again, watching Thorin continue to scrape the whetstone in short, jerking movements.

Bilbo thinks about raising the fact that elvish blades don’t actually _need_ sharpening, but ends up dismissing the thought almost immediately. Thorin is a skilled blacksmith; there’s no way he doesn’t know that. If he’s sharpening it now, there’s definitely something else going on.

“What’s wrong?” He asks quietly.

Thorin’s jaw clenches so hard it cracks. “Kíli.” He bites out, in time with a particularly harsh scrape along the blade. “He wants to — with the _elf_ — he wants, him and Tauriel, they’re going to—”

The whetstone screeches painfully off the blade, and Thorin swears as blood spurts over his thumb.

Bilbo doesn’t remember crossing the room, but suddenly his hand is on Thorin’s wrist, stalling it. “Let me see,” he says, and Thorin resists for about two seconds before sighing deeply and relinquishing his hand. Bilbo turns it over gently, his fingers exploring the hard lines of tendons and calluses to inspect the cut. “It’s not too deep,” he murmurs. “Give me a moment. I think we still have some things leftover in here.”

Thorin says nothing. He doesn’t move whilst Bilbo bustles around his chambers, retrieving supplies they haven’t needed for some time now. He doesn’t react when Bilbo crouches down back in front of him. Only physically taking Thorin’s hand again finally provokes a response. Thorin draws in a soft, sharp breath, a pained sort of vulnerability flitting across his expression as Bilbo cradles his hand in both of his.

It has all the potential to be a highly charged moment — fraught with suffocating awkwardness. Yet the familiarity of it all relaxes Bilbo; puts him in mind of countless nights spent sat on the floor doing the exact same thing. He patches it up without fuss, sweeping his thumb absently over the blue veins of Thorin’s wrist as he does.

When he looks up again, some of his calm has evidently bled through to Thorin. He watches Bilbo with a quiet and steady fondness, though there’s almost something sad in it. The fire cracks into the silence as a log settles, casting the room into softer colours.

“There,” Bilbo’s voice comes out a tad rough. He doesn’t release Thorin’s hand immediately, tracing his fingertips over the backs of Thorin’s knuckles. “So. How about you try explaining that again. Maybe without the swords and the bleeding and with full sentences this time.”

Thorin glowers at him half-heartedly, but obliges. “Kíli proposed. He and the elf have made their courtship public.”

“Oh.” Bilbo falls silent for a moment. “Was there — was there an announcement? Did I miss something?”

 _That_ earns him a startled look Bilbo can’t read at all. “No — why would you — dwarves do not make announcements when they begin courting.”

“Then how do you know?”

This is starting to get close to precarious territory now, but Bilbo can’t help but ask.

Thorin keeps watching him. His eyes rove Bilbo’s face, as though searching for something. When he eventually speaks, his voice has shifted into that carefully neutral tone that Bilbo recognises from council meetings.

“When a dwarf wishes to court, they begin with a gift. They present the object of their affections with a token of great and personal value, and bid that it is accepted as a gift. If the token is accepted, the courtship is now official for both parties. It is usually displayed publicly, indicating that they are now exclusive, and will not welcome any further suitors. By the standards of our cultures, it is as good as an engagement to marry, a promise to spend the rest of their days together.”

Thorin stops then, swallowing.

“So Kíli gave Tauriel a gift? And she accepted it?”

Again, Thorin gives Bilbo a look he can’t decipher at all, and Bilbo has the creeping sense he’s missing something important. “A pair of vambraces, crafted by his own hand.” Thorin pauses, then adds grudgingly. “It is fine craftsmanship.”

“And you’re… upset?”

Another log shifts in the fire. Thorin sighs. “Dwarves believe that Mahal creates our Ones. When we love, we love once, with everything we are; fierce as the flames of the hottest forge and eternally as the stone from which we were born from.”

The misery is a quiet, sudden thing. It sits cold in Bilbo’s chest, dousing everything else. When his words finally fight their way past the numbness, Bilbo’s throat is dry. “So you think that because Tauriel is not a dwarf, she cannot be Kíli’s One?”

Thorin jerks, looks genuinely startled again. “ _No,_ ” he says emphatically. His hand closes reflexively around Bilbo’s, and Bilbo feels some warmth again crack through the chill. “No, Bilbo, not at all — the will of our Maker is not ours to know. If my nephew loves her, it is Mahal’s will. I only…” he sighs again. “It has been my pain of experience to suffer the duplicity of elves — to know only their faithlessness and perfidy. Kíli will love no other now, but Tauriel…” Thorin trails off, struggling. “I only wish to spare him the same grief I have known. I wish, perhaps, that they had waited.”

Bilbo looks down at their hands, still entwined. His own, small and soft and lightly tanned from the sun; Thorin’s, large and rough and scarred.

“I believe in some matters, elves and dwarves are not so different,” he ventures. “Elves also only bond once. Their love is like starlight; eternal and never-waning, even if sometimes you cannot see it.”

“You seem remarkably well informed on the affections of elves.” Thorin’s surliness speaks its own reprimand.

Bilbo pinches him lightly in return. “Tauriel is my dear friend, as you well know. It is impossible _not_ to pick up a few things; she is hardly reticent with her regard for Kíli.”

“I wish I had your faith.”

“Then let mine stand for you. _No one_ who sees the two of them together can doubt their love. Give them time. I’m certain that Tauriel will surprise you.”

Thorin just humphs. He follows Bilbo’s gaze down to their hands, where Bilbo has started tracing the lines on his palm. His voice goes impossibly soft, hesitant. “How do hobbits love then?”

“Hmm?” Bilbo is distracted, marvelling at the contrast of hard calluses on the palm and the smooth skin on the underside of Thorin’s wrist.

“If dwarves love as fire and stone, and elves love as starlight, how do hobbits love?”

Bilbo smiles a little. “Gently. Patiently. Unreservedly. Not with grand gestures or poetry or valuable gifts, but with care and concern, and small, everyday acts. Hobbits love others the same way they love the land: by taking care of it.”

“By taking care of the person they are in love with.” Thorin notes in a strange voice.

Bilbo hums, fixated on smoothing down a bit of linen binding the cut on Thorin’s hand. “I suppose that ‘I’m going to take care of you’ is the same as a hobbit saying ‘I love you’.”

Thorin’s sharp inhale breaks his reverie, and Bilbo abruptly freezes, realising the position they’re in. Realises what he’s just inadvertently confessed.

His head snaps up, mouth open and soundless. A dozen excuses and explanations hover on his lips, but the words utterly fail him. He thinks of all these months of fragility and rebuilding and unspoken things, half-truths and little moments and misunderstandings, and all in all, everything Bilbo wants to tell him, but all Bilbo can see right now is Thorin staring at him, his expression shocked and disbelieving and just on the edge of something close to hope, and Bilbo can feel Thorin’s pulse jump under his fingers and smell hearth smoke in Thorin’s shirt, and it’s all far, far too much.

“Thorin, I…” he manages, a cracked exhale, but he doesn’t get any further, for at that precise moment the door bursts open, and Bilbo drops Thorin’s hand as though burnt.

“Uncle!” Fíli’s voice shatters the moment, loud and breathless. “Uncle did you see? Kíli proposed! They’re engaged!”

Bilbo’s head is spinning too much to hear Thorin’s reply. He backs up, heart pounding, unsteady on his feet, and Thorin’s eyes follow him helplessly but Fili’s excited babbling leaves no room to call after him as Bilbo takes his chance to slip away. He flees through fire-lit passages and stone halls until he finds daylight, and there he slides to the ground and buries his face in his hands and tries to remember how to breathe. Tries to forget the look in Thorin's eyes as he left, any semblance of hope guttering with every step Bilbo took away from him.

* * *

The spring equinox is a time of celebration: the promise of new life, the shaking off the last vestiges of winter, the gratified, deep-seated knowledge of having survived the worst.

But Mahal knows the arrival of spring is the last thing Thorin feels like celebrating right now.

He attends the feast and festivities as is expected of him, then ducks out from the after drinks with the Company, making his excuses of seeing to the most recent negotiations with the Greenwood. It’s not just an excuse; he really _does_ need to reply to Thranduil soon, and fully intends to make a start on it tonight.

Yet when he reaches his chambers, he’s struck by the cold fireplace, the cushions where Bilbo and he had sat on countless nights before. He sees the stool by his bed where Bilbo would kneel to rebind his wounds, his rolled up sleeves bathed with firelight. He sees the the table where they had snacked on scones yesterday afternoon, laughing about some mishap in the kitchens. He sees the bit of his desk which is always kept clear for Bilbo to perch on, legs swinging, listening to Thorin rant about politics and cheekily pointing out split-infinitives in his speeches. He sees the couch where Bilbo would fall asleep after an evening of talking over tea, more often than he would in his own bed down the hall.

He sees the whetstone sitting on his bedside table, where Bilbo had gently taken it out of his hand yesterday evening.

He sees all the empty spaces where Bilbo has been absent since.

His chambers are overflowing with Bilbo’s presence, and yet all Thorin can see is where he isn’t.

Thorin ends up on the ramparts instead. It’s not the same wall, but the sense-memory of it is the same. The wind, the view, the height. The night is clear. The stars are blue and shiver in the distance. A warmer breeze winds up from the south, singing of lost things. Far away, the faint, purple brushstroke of dawn smudges across the horizon. It’s late. Or early, maybe. Thorin’s lost all sense of time.

Perhaps coming here had been a mistake, after all. He had left his chambers to escape Bilbo’s presence, but if anything it’s worse here.

_(“No. No I may be a burglar, but I like to think I’m an honest one.”)_

_(“You were right. When I led the charge from the Mountain. I didn’t think I’d be coming back.”)_

_(“Come on. Let’s get inside, before Óin has an aneurism. You’ll have plenty of time to admire the rebuilding efforts later.”)_

_Time._ Thorin breathes in the milder spring air, and wonders when it will all stop feeling so temporary.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

As though he had conjured him up, Bilbo’s voice drifts from behind him. It’s the first he’s approached Thorin since fleeing from his chambers yesterday.

Thorin says nothing. He cannot. Once again, he regrets choosing this particular place to flee to. There’s too much history here, too much potential, too much weight of significance between him and Bilbo.

 _Which will it be this time?_ Thorin finds himself thinking. _Will you promise time anew, or will I be forced to watch you leave again?_

Bilbo comes to stand at his side. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he says, quietly. “I suppose I wasn’t quite as ready as I thought I was to… well. I needed some time. I’ve been thinking about… about home.”

 _Time,_ Thorin thinks again, bitterly. _It has to run out at some point._

He swallows, pain and longing and resignation, all of it lodged deep in his heart. “You’re leaving.”

“Actually, well, you see—” Bilbo shuffles nervously on his feet “—that was what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You hardly need my permission, Bilbo.”

Bilbo looks confused momentarily. “I… I don’t?”

_Why would Bilbo need his permission to go?_

Thorin just blinks at him, properly hesitant now, feeling horrendously off balance.

“Well, what of your opinion then?” Bilbo tries, and that’s worse, somehow.

Thorin jerks his head away, allowing his hair to spill over his face between them. Honesty dictates that Thorin bid him to stay. His heart entreats him to confess the whole business right there and then.

But Bilbo isn’t asking Thorin about love. Bilbo is asking about _home_ , and Thorin can’t take that from him, can’t make Bilbo’s choice for him. Bilbo _deserves_ his books and armchairs and trees, deserves the Shire and all its beauty and — and not Thorin.

He doesn’t dare look at Bilbo. If he looks, he will break. He looks instead towards the brightening sky, at the dawn crystallising into morning.

“I would do as you wish.” He says at last, carefully. “You’ve certainly done more than enough for me.”

“That’s not what I asked, Thorin.”

“What do you want me to say?” Pain lances through him in a white-hot _crack,_ colours his voice with frustration. “Do you miss your home?”

Bilbo’s brow creases. “Yes—”

“Then go.” Thorin pushes the words out, even as they tear at his heart. “For Mahal’s sake, Bilbo, go back to the Shire, if that’s what you want. It’s what all this was about, wasn’t it? Getting both of us home? Well, now you can. I know you miss it. I can see it, day by day. So please, do not — do not ask me to be the one who keeps you from it.”

Bilbo is silent for a long, long moment. “Are you saying I should leave?”

Thorin grips the wall tight, feels tears burn behind closed lids. “No,” he says, his honesty cracking through his composure. “No, that’s not… no.”

Bilbo looks even more confused than when he started. Somewhere above them, birds have begun to sing, announcing the daybreak. And Thorin…

Thorin just feels tired. He has the sudden impression of being here before — of Bilbo finding him up here after they returned to the mountain, and speaking of time and new beginnings.

_(“Yes, time. All the time in the world, in fact, and we are going to make the best of it.”)_

Thorin wonders where it has all gone. Wonders how all the time in the world can feel so lacking.

Bilbo watches him still, eyes dark and fervent in the receding moonlight, brow furrowed with a thought Thorin can’t hope to read.

“Okay,” he says, eventually, and Thorin recognises that tone. It’s the voice of reason, of good sense and thoughtfulness in little things, the same one he uses when Thorin is being particularly stubborn (or having the indecency to bleed out from a stab wound). “Okay, I feel like we may be talking at cross-purposes here, so, let’s make this simpler. Do you want me to stay?”

“I would never ask you to give up your home.”

“I understand that.” Bilbo says patiently. “Do you _want_ me to stay?”

Thorin struggles. He cannot remember ever having to hold himself under such control. “I don’t want you… not to stay.”

“Well, I’m prepared to stay, if you want me to.”

"I don’t want to be the reason you stay.”

“And what if you were?”

Silence.

The words slip out, as though Bilbo hasn’t had time to consider them, but he doesn’t take them back. His lips part, his face flushes, a picture of overwhelmed and struggling emotions. He stares at Thorin almost defiantly, and Thorin can’t breathe.

He remembers Bilbo asking _him_ to stay all those months ago, when life was slipping from his grasp, and how for that moment he became Thorin’s entire reason to hold on.

 _You once commanded me not to give up, and I didn’t._ He wants to reply.

_You asked me to hold on, and I did._

_You begged me to stay, and I stayed._

The dawn has finally broken. The sun spills across the land, a pale beam slicing across the horizon. It reflects in Bilbo’s eyes. Thorin takes a step toward.

And a giant raven lands on the wall between them.

Bilbo springs back with a gasp, one hand on his chest, gawping at the bird that’s nearly as big as he. Thorin wants to kill something.

“Thorin.” The raven says, in its harsh, cawing voice. “Thorin. Thorin.”

For a good, solid few seconds, Thorin genuinely contemplates beheading the bird, for the sole reason of it being _another_ blasted interruption. Never mind that the ravens are a sacred part of Erebor; the next thing that comes between him and Bilbo in a moment of intimacy will meet the end of his axe. Thorin side-steps the raven, determined to _ignore_ it until he and Bilbo resolve this.

Then the raven of Erebor says:

“Dís.”

Thorin’s head snaps around. “What did you say?”

“Dís!” The raven squawks, flapping its great wings in excitement. “Dís! Dís sends word! Dís comes to Thorin!”

“But that doesn’t… that’s not…she can’t…” Thorin trails off, for there is a horn blowing in the distance. His mouth drops.

Another call follows: a mighty blast deeper than the first, merging to make the very earth shake with the sonorous open fifth. It thrums in his heart, sets Thorin’s very blood on fire with the familiar sound. Thorin looks up to the south.

There are dwarves on the horizon.


	4. Chapter 4

_There are dwarves on the horizon._

Bilbo runs through stone passages, hot on Thorin’s heels.

 _The Lady Dís!_ The call goes up through the mountain, in the layers of voice upon voice as people wake. _The Lady Dís marches home!_ _The dwarves of Ered Luin are coming!_

Bilbo fights to keep up, but it’s utter chaos around him; he’s lost easily in the crowds.

“Thorin!” He yells, but the king is nowhere to be seen — had been swallowed up the moment he entered the fray. Bilbo grits his teeth. He starts fighting towards the gate, squeezing between the mass of bodies as best he can. He’s just on the verge of yelling again for Thorin when a hand grasps his collar and yanks him up out of the crowds, depositing him on the back of an enormous pig that seems to have come from absolutely nowhere.

“Ride with me, ay laddie?” Dáin’s voice bellows in his ear from behind, and Bilbo flashes him a grateful look.

On the back of the pig — (hog? boar? do pigs even get this big?) — they escape the crowds with ease. They fall into the the procession winding out from the Mountain. Familiar faces appear around him — the Company on rams, Thorin emerging far ahead at the lead. His eyes snap immediately to Bilbo as he and Dáin join the Company ranks, running over him with familiar concern. Some of the tension leaves Thorin’s face. He mouths an apology. Bilbo waves him away.

“Bilbo!” Kíli cries joyfully, riding up beside him. “We thought we’d lost you!”

Bilbo dredges up a weak smile. He feels oddly strung out, fragile with the emotional whiplash of the past few minutes. Mustering the courage to speak, battling crippling uncertainty and insecurity, seeing Thorin’s regal stoic expression crack with breathless hope, and then in the crux of it all, being interrupted _yet again,_ this time with a message that sends a whole other plethora of emotions battling for dominance on Thorin’s face.His sister rides to meet him. His people are on the brink of returning to the home Thorin had pledged to reclaim for them. His quest is finally at an end. It’s enough to overwhelm anyone. Bilbo can hardly blame him for rushing to confirm it with his own eyes.

Still, he can’t help but resent the raven’s arrival, just a little. If only to have discovered what lay behind that expectant edge in Thorin’s expression as he stepped forward. If only to have the chance to say what he had been unable to these past months. _If only, if only…_

Another horn blast captures his attention. This time from Erebor, signalling their welcome in return.Beside him, Kíli whoops. He spurs his ram on, his brother following in his wake with a broad grin.

“Aye, it is they who the Lady Dís will be most eager to see,” Dáin remarks from behind him, sounding amused. “Followed closely by Thorin, and you, I would imagine, Master Baggins.”

“Me?” Bilbo repeats dubiously. “What interest could Thorin’s sister have in meeting me?”

Dáin roars at that, as though Bilbo had said something uproariously funny. “What interest indeed!” He exclaims. He also spurs on his mount, launching them forward with a speed Bilbo hadn’t thought the pig was capable of, and Bilbo is too busy concentrating on hanging on for dear life than questioning Dáin’s remark further.

The cold, red mantle of the morning sweeps over them as they ride, passing out from under the shadow of the mountain towards Dale. A brisk breeze picks up from the south. Snow still covers most of the land, though the ever milder temperatures has it turning to slush beneath their feet. Up ahead, the land is gradually filling — rams and carts and ponies, thousands marching on foot, banners waving high above their heads.

At their lead, a single rider pulls free from the rest. She all but flies across the last stretch of land, dark hair streaming in the crisp morning wind, and leaps straight off her mount just as Thorin reaches her.

The two siblings embrace fiercely, knocking foreheads with a force that Bilbo swears he can hear at fifty yards. A second later Fíli and Kíli reach them. They barely wait for their rams to skid to a stop before tumbling off them, talking a million miles an hour, throwing themselves into their mother’s waiting arms with enough force than anyone else should have been knocked over. But Dís merely grabs her sons, arms wrapping round them tightly in a crushing embrace. Her face is lost between them, her cheeks pressed to theirs. She’s wearing trousers and furs and light armour, beads swinging from her hair and beard, the chilly morning air clinging to the flush of her cheeks.

“Thank Mahal.” It’s the first words Bilbo’s heard her speak. She strokes her sons’ hair, their backs, grips their napes and presses her forehead to each of theirs individually. “Oh, thank Mahal, Thorin—”

A hand goes out. Thorin gets yanked back into the embrace with a faint _oof._ He mumbles a complaint that immediately gets lost, but hugs all three of them as tightly as he can, shutting his eyes.

Bilbo senses Dáin slow as they approach, and he doesn’t blame him. The four Durins are wrapped in each other, laughing and crying and speaking over each other. There is so much _movement_ in them. So much brightness and elation, and a gut wrenching _relief_ that hardy needs to be spoken. Everyone else hangs back, letting the family have their moment.

Bilbo’s sensitive ears can’t help but pick up a few fragments of conversation, though.

“But how did you—”

“The battle? I heard you were wounded—”

“Get here so fast—”

“We got word—”

“We’re _fine,_ mum—”

“Ered Luin?”

“Couldn’t wait any longer—”

“The journey—”

“Hard, but less so than yours from what I’ve heard—”

“Did you get our letters?”

“The winter—”

“Mild in the south. We set out at first thaw.”

“You shouldn’t have risked such a journey before midsummer—”

“Stubbornness runs in the family, as you well know, brother.”

“It is _so_ good to see you.” Thorin finishes, his voice going a touch hoarse.

Dís presses their foreheads together again, breathing against him. The two continue speaking, murmuring so quietly Bilbo can’t hear anymore. Around him, members of the Company have started straying forward, calling to the dwarves who approach from behind Dís. Dáin dismounts, starting forward with a broad grin to greet his kin, leaving Bilbo still sat awkwardly on the pig. He slides off clumsily, but doesn’t venture forward. He can’t help but feel a tad out of place. Everyone is talking to someone, the Durins lost in each other, the Company racing off to greet friends and family. Who is Bilbo to intrude?

He pats the pig tentatively, and gets a snuffle for his efforts, and settles for watching from the sidelines.

That’s how he ends up witnessing when Dís pulls back, braces her hands on Thorin’s shoulders, and head-buts her brother so violently that Thorin nearly falls flat on his back.

“Mahal wept, Dís, what was that for?” Thorin curses, stumbling and rubbing his forehead.

“ _Engaged_ , Thorin?” Dís exclaims, smacking him again. “You couldn’t have put that in any of the dozen letters we exchanged? I had to hear it from Fíli! My own brother finds his One, and you didn’t even think to _mention_ it?”

“I didn’t —” Thorin mumbles incoherently “— it’s not…”

“Engaged.” Bilbo repeats, blankly.

It’s hardly loud. In truth, Bilbo doesn’t think he manages more than a whisper, but every single eye in the immediate vicinity turns to look at him all the same. In the silence, Bilbo takes a feeble, faltering step backwards. His hand uselessly grips the reign of Dáin’s mount, as though to anchor himself. The word ‘ _engaged'_ keeps circling in his mind.

“Bilbo…”

Thorin’s voice seems to come from a great distance. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, Bilbo looks at him. He’s not sure what his own face is doing, but Thorin’s has entirely drained of colour.

“Bilbo—”

_“Engaged?”_

Thorin flinches. Bilbo gulps in a breath, feeling dizzy with the weight of so many people. Thorin doesn’t even seem to see them. He takes a hesitant step forward, hands coming up entreatingly.

“I was going to tell you,” Thorin says. “Bilbo, I’m so sorry, don’t — ” his voice cracks “— don’t do that, please, don’t cry—”

 _I’m not crying_ , Bilbo thinks numbly, but the world is blurry, and there’s a hot wetness on his cheeks and something breaking in his throat.

Thorin takes another step toward him, his eyes wide and afraid, and suddenly Bilbo feels very small. Very small, and very insignificant, and very lost.

_Another’s. Thorin will be another’s._

Bilbo shivers, rocking on his heels, trying to keep his balance. His voice is faint. “But I thought…”The words will not come. Bilbo shakes his head jerkily, wrestles himself together again. “I can’t do this.”

Thorin’s expression spasms with pain. “Bilbo…”

“No. I’m going home.”

Thorin reels back as though Bilbo had struck him. Something slams shut in his eyes. He looks, for a moment, utterly crushed. He says nothing as Bilbo stumbles away, dodging every member of the company who reaches for him, slipping through the crowds. Bilbo can hear his friends calling frantically after him, but he doesn’t slow, not until he gets far enough away to slip on his ring and disappear.

Bilbo manages to make it all the way to the mountain before the tears start flowing again — all the way back to his chambers before he yanks the ring off and slumps into the nearest chair and succumbs to the quiet, wrecked sobs that tear themselves deep from his chest.

_How could Bilbo have been so blind? How could he have fooled himself these past months, misread the situation so badly?_

_(Who was it who had claimed Thorin’s heart?)_

“Oh. It’s you.”

A snide voice makes Bilbo’s head snap up. A dwarf lord stands before him — one of Dáin’s, from the Iron Hills. _Frár_ , Bilbo’s dazed mind provides. He’s one of the more confrontational ones in council meetings, had been particularly vocal about Bilbo joining them in the beginning, and seemed to take great joy in picking a fight with everything Bilbo said.

And now he’s standing in the doorway, staring at Bilbo like he’s insane.

That’s when Bilbo realises that, amidst his hysteria, he’s missed his rooms by one.

He’s in the council room next door.

Frár is still staring at him, paperwork clasped under his arm, making Bilbo wonder if he had also come here in search of being alone. “Come to _advise_ me upon another council matter, have you, Master Baggins?”

“I’m sorry,” Bilbo chokes, “I didn’t mean… I’ll just go.”

He gets clumsily to his feet and makes for the door to his own chambers.

“Good riddance. After that ridiculous diplomatic spectacle today with the Princess, I would lay low too, if I were you.”

Bilbo freezes. “Excuse me?”

Frár makes a derogatory noise, low in his throat. “You can be at no loss to understand my meaning. Intruding on our council meetings, I can let slide. Dallying around with the King, well, that’s hardly any of my business. But _embarrassing_ him in front of the whole kingdom? Having your _lovers spat_ during a moment of triumph for our people, a return the dwarves of Ered Luin have been waiting for almost a century? Now to be upstarted by a _halfling_ with advantageous designs on the throne.”

Bilbo gapes at him, thrown off balance. “I assure you, you are mistaken. Thorin and I…we’re not…”

“Nor will you, if you were sensible of your own good.” Frár goes on. “Surely you must know that this match to which you have the presumption to aspire to can never take place.”

“I don’t…?”

“Your very alliance would be a disgrace. It is a blight on the noble name of Durin, a mockery of these ancient halls—”

“Lord Frár, I’m not—”

“Even now, you deny it. You have no regard then, for the claims of duty, tradition, propriety?”

“I have n _o idea what you’re talking about_.” Bilbo bursts out.

Frár’s face twists with true ire. He strides forward and jabs at the mithril Bilbo wears. “This, Master Baggins, is what I speak of. You are not worthy of this, and of the courtship it promises. Your engagement with the King _cannot_ stand—”

“My engagement,” Bilbo repeats woodenly.

“—and it is my opinion that under no circumstances—”

“ _MY_ engagement?”

The dwarf lord stares at him again.

And Bilbo —

Bilbo laughs. Weakly, hysterically, he laughs, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Oh Valar above.”

“Master Baggins—”

But Bilbo is already out the door. He bursts out of the council rooms, careening left —

And runs smack into Thorin. Strong arms catch him automatically as Bilbo slams into Thorin’s chest, and the impact sends them both staggering apart again.

“It’s me,” Bilbo breathes. "You meant me.”

"You meant Erebor.” Thorin says almost simultaneously. “Not the Shire.”

“What?”

Bilbo looks at him properly now, and he sees how out of breath he is, how dishevelled and wrecked he looks.

Thorin seems to gather his strength. “When you said you were going home. You meant Erebor. Not the Shire.”

Bilbo stares, his mind reeling for a second before he alights on Thorin’s meaning.

It’s almost sad, the way Thorin tries to sound so adamant. Bilbo hears the question in it though, that waver of crippling uncertainty in Thorin’s voice, sees the way he holds himself, as though bracing for inevitable rejection, and suddenly —

Suddenly he wonders how long Thorin has been broken. How long, and how deeply, that nothing can convince him that he has Bilbo, that happiness exists as more than just something to be ripped away.

“Yes, of course. Thorin, what — I’m not going anywhere, is that what you thought?”

Thorin actually shudders. He closes his eyes, dropping his head and breathing deep, sharp breaths in through his nose, as though he’s pulling himself back from the brink of something.

“Please,” he says, with what looks like forced measuredness, “even if… even if you don’t want the engagement, please stay. I meant what I said after the battle. Erebor will welcome you always. This kingdom will honour and protect you for the rest of your days, and this Mountain will shelter you for as long as you wish, its resources, everything, you need only ask — ”

Thorin keeps talking, listing all the reasons for Bilbo to stay and yet in none of those reasons does he once include himself, and Bilbo remembers it all so clearly: that day in the healing tent, Thorin revoking his banishment, assuring him the _mountain_ would welcome him for all his days to come — and thinking it was never about that at all. Even now, Thorin still doesn’t get it.

“Thorin.” Bilbo stops him, and Thorin flinches. His shoulders slump a little in resignation, evidently waiting for the verbal attack he seems so sure is coming, and Bilbo hates that he can read all that in a glance. “You don’t understand. It was never about the mountain for me. Do you think I walked into that dragon-infested tomb and faced Smaug for _Erebor?_ It was for _you_ , Thorin. All of it, for you. To get your home back. I came here for you, and I stay, in no small part, because of _you_.”

Thorin looks so confused, it breaks Bilbo’s heart. “You mean to stay.”

“Of _course_ I mean to stay."

“But, your home—”

Bilbo darts forward, taking Thorin’s face between his hands before he can finish, because it’s the only way he can think of to make Thorin listen. “I would not leave you,” he says, swears it, “not for all the books and armchairs and gardens in the world. Not ever, not for anything.”

Thorin goes utterly still beneath him. His eyes dart rapidly between Bilbo’s, desperate, as though he’s searching for the truth of it there. Bilbo sees the moment he finds it; his expression twists, crumpling.

This time it’s Thorin’s hand that comes up, traces a feather-light sweep under Bilbo’s eye with his thumb. “But.” It croaks from Thorin’s throat. “You wept.”

Bilbo’s throat bobs. He cradles Thorin’s face for a moment longer, savouring the warmth. Then lets it go. Bilbo feels dizzy all of a sudden, struck with the magnitude of what he’s about to initiate, that last teetering on the cliff’s edge that they’ve been balanced on for so long, not daring to jump because once you do there’s no going back —

 _Courage,_ Bilbo thinks, and leaps.

“It’s me, isn’t it?” Bilbo says. “The engagement. You meant me. That you’re engaged to me.”

Thorin’s brow furrows with confusion. “Of course. Who else did you think—” He stops, his own hand falling away, sudden, horrible realisation flashing across his face. “You thought I was engaged to another.”

“Well what else was I supposed to think when your sister let slip you were engaged?” Bilbo says, flustered. “Call me old fashioned, but I rather assumed that if _I_ were engaged, I might _actually_ _know_ about it!”

Thorin’s laugh is a strangled, fragile thing. His hand drops to Bilbo’s collar now, pulling it back to reveal the iridescent gleam of mithril underneath. “I intended to tell you of its meaning long ago. Many times, I wanted to. A token of great and personal value, offered as a gift, witnessed, and accepted. Albeit, the circumstances I offered it in were less than ideal, but a valid proposal nonetheless in the eyes of our law.”

A valid proposal, offered whilst in the throes of dragon sickness. Bilbo seizes his courage once again, because as deeply and desperately as he wants this, he can’t in good conscience hold Thorin accountable to his actions then, and likewise won’t let _himself_ accept anything less than the real thing; it wouldn’t be fair to either of them, they both deserve better than that, but even still, he has to know, he _has_ to know —

“Did you mean it?”

Thorin’s eyes fly to his, wide.

“I mean,” Bilbo stammers, “you weren’t… entirely _yourself_ when you gave it to me, so —”

He trails off when Thorin takes both of Bilbo’s hands and presses them to his lips. Not quite a kiss. Just holding them there, breathing against his skin.

“I love you.” Thorin says, plainly. “I loved you long before we stepped foot inside this mountain. I loved you even when I lost myself and knew nothing else. I love you now, and I shall love you until I am nothing more than dust in this world. Whether or not any action I performed during my sickness may be considered truly mine, I cannot say; all I know is that I meant it then, and I mean it now, in the meaning that I love you with all that I am, and I wish never to be parted from you from this day forth.”

The swell of uncontainable joy that fills Bilbo’s chest in that moment is so strong it knocks the breath from him, leaves him reeling giddily with the realisation.

“Well why didn’t you just _say_ that?” Bilbo breathes, and kisses him.

There’s a crystalline second where Thorin freezes, his soft gasp stalling on Bilbo’s lips.

A thousand moments quiver between them — a thousand looks and words and touches, a thousand times they had stepped away from each other — all eclipsing in the distance they now close. And then — 

Then.

A whole-body shudder ripples through Thorin. He makes a noise — a sob. It wrenches from his chest as though yanked. His arms wrap around Bilbo’s waist, draw him impossibly closer. His head dips down and nudges to the side.

And he kisses Bilbo back.

 _Dwarves love fiercely,_ Bilbo remembers, in some dazed part of his mind that still functions.

Understatement of the age.

Thorin’s lips are fire on his, capturing his mouth with a singleminded intensity that makes Bilbo’s knees go weak and heat pool in his belly. He coaxes Bilbo’s mouth open, deepening the kiss with a low, rumbling hum that Bilbo feels more than hears. Bilbo can’t help it; he melts, arching into Thorin’s touch with a wordless sound, hands flying up to cradle Thorin’s face, tangle in his hair. He pushes his fingers through it, dragging lightly along his scalp. Thorin lets out a soft groan. His next kiss is achingly tender though, long and drawn out with a softness that has helpless _want_ threatening to burst out between Bilbo’s ribs.

It’s too much. He can’t contain all of this, this… _feeling_ , for Thorin, for one person. How can such love even exist?

It feels a bit like falling. A bit like landing. It’s like drawing breath, like speaking his own name, like breaking the surface after drowning, and not even knowing that he could live on air, on _this_.

It’s like the first journey, or the last one, or every one. Every horizon he’d ever gazed toward, wondering what lay beyond. Every missing piece of belonging drawing at his heart.

Thorin kisses him, and the very earth seems to cease its turn, and Bilbo never thought home could taste like this, like smoke and silver and eternity.

When they finally break for breath, Bilbo is utterly undone, and Thorin is staring at him with an open and astonished wonder, as though he’s only just realised Bilbo exists, and there’s such a brightness there, such sheer, unbounded _joy_ in Thorin’s face, it makes Bilbo want to cry a bit, because —

“You. You’ve never. Never looked like this, Thorin.”

“You’re staying.” Thorin breathes, as if in answer.

Bilbo feels tears in his eyes, even as he laughs. “Well, I’m certainly not about to _leave_ after _that_ , am I?”

“You accept the proposal.”

“ _Yes_ , Thorin. Honestly, just how long were you planning to wait before telling me I’m engaged in the eyes of dwarven law? Were you going to wait until we were _actually_ married, or just until I apparently left for the Shire?”

Thorin just shakes his head, a tiny, helpless smile pulling at his lips. “You love me,” he finishes, whisper-soft, and even now, after everything, Bilbo can hear the little question in it.

So Bilbo crowds into him as he’s always wanted to, cupping Thorin’s neck and stroking his cheekbones with his thumbs and bringing him forward to touch their foreheads together, and utters, with every ounce of sincerity he has: “I love you.”

Light fills Thorin’s eyes — such light as Bilbo has never seen. He sweeps Bilbo up into his arms, swinging him around and burying his face in Bilbo’s neck over the sound of Bilbo’s breathless laughter. He rains kisses all over Bilbo’s face, finishes with one on his lips that doesn’t quite work because both of them are grinning too much.

“I love you,” Bilbo says again, because he didn’t say it right the first time, because Thorin needs to hear it, again and again, needs to understand, needs to know _how much_ and how deeply, how Bilbo aches with this love in places he didn’t know could ache, how it has changed him and shaped him and given him the strength to do things he never thought he could do, how it sets fire to his soul and yet anchors him to safety at the same time, fills him up and surrounds him and lives and breathes within him so there is nowhere Bilbo could wander where Thorin would not be with him, the way Thorin is now. “I love you, Thorin. I love you, I—”

The words are lost as Thorin surges forward to kiss him again, sudden enough that Bilbo almost topples over backwards before his hands find the lapels of Thorin’s coat. He presses back, feeling Thorin’s arms come around him again, leaving his hands free to slide easily beneath the layers of Thorin’s outer clothing. He can feel Thorin’s pounding heartbeat beneath his hands, the way it stutters when he catches Thorin’s bottom lip with his teeth. He can feel the shift in the next kiss. The hand that cups his neck, searing heat through his skin, tilting his head _just so_ and narrowing his entire world to nothing but Thorin’s lips on his. He can feel the dizzying _want_ , the thrill when Bilbo opens for him and Thorin’s tongue slides hot against his own, and _sweet Valar,_ Bilbo’s knees actually give way this time.

Thorin catches him easily. His arms wrap around Bilbo, drawing him against the steady warmth of Thorin’s chest, holding him there.

“Easy,” Thorin murmurs against his lips, and Bilbo can feel the smile in it.

Bilbo huffs a shaky laugh. He presses his face into the dusky curve of Thorin’s neck, lets himself be held for a moment whilst his erratic heartbeat calms. Thorin brushes a kiss to his temple, his hands settling on the small of Bilbo’s back. The silence falls over them in the hush of gradually slowing breathing.

“You truly did not know?” Bilbo asks, when his ability to form words returns.

Thorin’s hands stroke lightly up and down Bilbo’s back.

“No.” His voice rumbles, soft and intimate against Bilbo’s ear. “When you spoke of hobbits and love, I thought… but then…” He trails off, nosing into Bilbo’s curls with a brushing sigh. “I hoped,” he admits.

Bilbo nuzzles the underside of Thorin’s jaw, rubs his cheek over the brush of beard. “We’re really engaged.”

“We’re engaged.”

“You proposed to me in front of people.”

“I did. I was there.”

Bilbo feels a hysterical smile returning. It feels like a bubble of joy has caught in his chest, scarcely containable by laughter or tears.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I can’t believe _no one_ told me.”

“They… may have been under the impression you already knew.”

“Because all this would have been evident to a dwarf the whole time?”

Thorin’s sheepish silence speaks for itself.

Bilbo pulls back to look at him as another thought occurs. “… does _everyone_ know we’re engaged?”

A faint flush stains Thorin’s cheeks, and Bilbo does laugh then, at the ridiculousness of it all. “Yavanna, and to think, I’ve been worried about _feet_ this whole time.”

“Feet?”

Bilbo peeks at him, biting his lip in a vain attempt to stop his smile. He can’t. His most deep-seated embarrassment at this doesn’t even _touch_ the giddy happiness coursing through him right now, and even if it did, there’s the hilarious scrunched up confusion on Thorin’s face to contend with.

“So, ah.” How to explain feet to the King of the Dwarves? Bilbo should have really rehearsed this. “Going back to the theme where hobbits and dwarves do things differently…"

His no doubt enlightening explanation is interrupted by a crash, a curse, and the second dwarf that day to come tearing down the corridor.

“Bilbo?” Dwalin pants. “Bilbo — have you seen—” He reels at the sight of the two of them, finishing flatly “…Thorin.”

Thorin straight-out gives him a little wave. “Hello, Dwalin. How may I be of service?”

He’s grinning the sort of grin that can’t be fought off, and his voice is far too chirpy, and Dwalin’s mouth drops open. Bilbo cracks up laughing.

Dwalin looks between the two of them, Bilbo still in Thorin’s arms, smothering his giggles into Thorin’s chest, Thorin’s ridiculous, blinding smile. He lets out a great, exaggerated sigh.

“ _Finally_ ,” Dwalin mutters. “Óin won’t be pleased about losing the bet, you know.”

“Bet?” Thorin repeats guilelessly.

Dwalin just glares at him. “You,” he says, “left the entire colony of the Blue Mountains _waiting_ out there in the snow, your _sister_ among them, and I am pleased — I really, _really_ am, that you two seem to have… sorted things — but for Mahal’s sake, Thorin, couldn’t you have at least _let them in_ before _running off?”_

Bilbo cranes his neck up to raise his eyebrows at Thorin. “You left them outside?”

“I… may have had other things on my mind.”

“But, oh, your sister! Thorin—”

“I had to catch you before you left.” Thorin confesses quietly, dipping his head. Their faces are so close now that their noses brush.

Bilbo's heart flutters unevenly in his chest. “But I wasn’t _leaving_ , you silly dwarf.”

“I could not take that chance.”

And what’s there to do then, but kiss him? It’s barely more than a brush of lips, feather-light to the corner of Thorin’s mouth, and Bilbo relishes his small, startled exhale before Thorin melts into the kiss, tipping his head for better access, eyes fluttering closed.

“Alright, alright, enough of that.” Dwalin’s voice pulls them apart, sounding vastly aggrieved. “Thorin, my king, my liege, my oldest friend. Get your kingly ass _out there_ right now and _welcome your people,_ or so help me, _you_ can explain to your sister why she’s sitting on the doorstep of the mountain she’s waited nearly a _century_ to return to, whilst you bestow sweet nothings on your beloved.”

Thorin lets out a theatrical sigh, resting his forehead against Bilbo’s briefly before straightening. “Is it too early to abdicate? Fíli would make a fine king.”

_“Thorin.”_

“Alright, fine, I’m going. I’m going!” Thorin steps away, gesturing as if to say _look, see how good I’m being?_

Bilbo just chuckles, marvelling at the happiness that bursts again in his chest. “Go on,” he says fondly. “I’ll be here.”

Thorin hesitates again though. “Actually, would you consider, I mean, my sister, and, given that we… that we’re…”

His mumbling comes to a halt when Bilbo takes his hand.

“Never to be parted from this day forth, wasn’t it?” He says. “Not literally, obviously, but… yes, I would like to meet your sister. Maybe without the crying and the misunderstandings and the running away this time.”

He’s rewarded with Thorin’s smile, warm and soft and on the breathtaking side of besotted.

“Mahal’s forges,” Dwalin mutters darkly. “Come on. We’re making it down there before nightfall if it kills me.”

“That is, if my sister doesn't kill me first,” Thorin adds.

Dwalin grunts, but his face softens immeasurably as Bilbo takes his place at Thorin’s side, and the two of them ascend out of the mountain, hand in hand.

* * *

“You gave me thirty-to-one odds!”

“Please. I would never give thirty-to-one odds on anything to do with _Bilbo._ ”

“Who had the pool for March?”

“Give me that parchment—” 

“I had February blocked off, that’s close enough—”

“Nonsense, you switched your prediction to midsummer last week in a fit of despair, remember?” 

“Does ‘following a cultural misunderstanding’ count?”

“What part of this mess _hasn’t_ been a cultural misunderstanding?”

“Just give me that bloody parchment—”

“I had ‘secret courting custom’ down as a catalyst event—” 

“‘Secret custom’ my arse. We’re _dwarves_. Most of our culture is a goddamn secret.”

“Now hang on a—”

“ENOUGH!” Balin exclaims, his voice snapping through the rabble. “ _I’ll_ be holding onto the parchment, thank you very much, and if you could all just _cease squabbling_ for ten seconds, we can get to the bottom of this.”

He unrolls the parchment with a flourish, takes out his seeing glass, and fixes his gaze beadily on the two of them. Bilbo is sat on Thorin’s lap at the edge of the circle, both of them watching the whole mess unfold with poorly contained amusement.

“Let’s get this straight, once and for all.” Balin announces importantly. “The past few months, both of you were courting the other by your own customs, and both of you were completely oblivious this was going on?”

Thorin and Bilbo exchange a glance.

“Pretty much.” Thorin says, far too cheerfully.

“ _How_ did you not know?” Nori bursts out to Bilbo, completely incredulous. “We all had to watch Thorin all but throwing himself at you every damned day!”

“He gave you rooms in the royal wing!” Dori wails.

“He sat you at his _left hand_ for every meeting of importance!” Ori chips in.

“And the _mithril!”_ Nori finishes.

“Look,” Bilbo says, ”I am a very small hobbit who has never left home before this mad adventure, and actually knows very little about the rest of the world unless it comes out of a book. I don’t know anything about foreign customs, especially _secret_ _dwarf ones_ , or handling cultural relations or fighting or even burgling really. You can’t blame me for being wrong once, or twice, or every day of this godforsaken adventure.”

Thorin silent laughter shakes through his chest against Bilbo’s back. Gandalf’s less silent laughter drifts from the other side of the room, where he, Tauriel, Dáin and Dís are similarly spectating. Dáin has even brought snacks.

“So…” Fíli draws out, mischief dancing in his eyes, “does this technically mean they _were_ courting the entire time like the Ri brothers said, or _weren’t_ courting at all like Bofur and Bifur and Dwalin said? Is the intention enough? Do you have to be _aware_ of the courting for it to count? And is all this redundant given they were _both_ doing it anyway?”

Nori, Bofur, and Dwalin all start talking at the same time. Balin smacks his face with his hands. Ori attempts to steal the parchment from him to check this-or-that-clause. The bickering continues. Thorin and Bilbo sit back and watch it all happen, vastly entertained. Whilst everyone else is distracted, Thorin draws Bilbo closer, trails his hands down Bilbo’s sides so he can dig his thumbs into his hips and drags his nose up Bilbo’s neck, because Thorin is _ridiculous_. He’s currently wearing Thorin’s clothes, his beads, his mithril, and there’s no way he’s not already broadcasting _property of Thorin_ in every dwarvish custom possible, and still Thorin has to mark him more.

Bilbo is hardly complaining though. He still may not understand many dwarvish customs, but the look in Thorin’s eyes every time he sees Bilbo in his clothes is well worth any misgivings he might have about switching out his waistcoats. Not that Thorin tends to let him stay in those clothes for long.

Bilbo turns his head to the side, nosing Thorin’s cheek, smiling at the content hum he gets in return. One of his hands sneaks out to grab the ale they’ve been sharing. Thorin steals the taste of it from the corner of Bilbo’s lips. He chases Bilbo’s mouth when he goes for another sip, and Bilbo relinquishes the drink easily in favour of stealing a kiss in return.

In public, such displays would be just short of scandalous, but in here, with family and Company, nobody bats an eyelid.

Thorin breaks away with a faint laugh, taking a generous gulp of his own, and Bilbo watches his throat bob with slightly glazed eyes.

“So the feet thing was a complete red herring?” Bifur’s voice steals his attention back to the discussion at hand. “It had nothing to do with the courtship at all?”

“Of course not. Thorin’s foot was injured.” Óin interjects calmly.

“You knew about that?” Thorin splutters on his ale.

“I’m honestly offended you think I would miss it,” Óin sniffs.

“And you didn’t say anything?” 

The healer just shrugs. “Bilbo was doing a fine job. I would have intervened if I thought I needed to. I also thought the time alone would speed things along. I didn’t think it would actually take _months_ for you to get your acts together. _”_

“So that’s a no on feet and courtship then.” Bofur says morosely, making a note on the parchment with the look of a dwarf who had just missed out on a great deal of money.

“Actually, well. About that.” Bilbo starts, and suddenly feels the weight of every single eye in the room. He coughs, feels his cheeks heat up. “It’s not… _entirely_ unrelated to um. Courting. Being of a. Ah. Somewhat. _Intimate_ nature to a Hobbit.”

Everyone stares at him uncomprehendingly. Gandalf is quietly losing it in the corner. 

"Intimate?" Ori says, looking terribly confused.

A dozen pairs of eyes continue to blink at him. Bilbo tries to think about how to put it delicately, then realises subtlety and miscommunication is what got them all into this mess in the first place. 

“It’s considered a sexual act,” Bilbo sighs, “as best I can explain.”

Thorin spits out his mouthful of ale for the second time. “Sexual act? Did I miss something all those times you had your hands on my foot?”

“That wasn’t the act,” Bilbo groans, rubbing his face. “That was just the… foreplay, if you like.”

“Foreplay.” Thorin repeats.

Kíli cackles. Gandalf is actually choking on his pipe now he's laughing so hard, and Dís is gallantly thumping him on the back.

“So I was right!” Bofur crows. “It _was_ relevant! Pay up, you scoundrels!”

And the heated discussion continues. Dwarves: meticulous about their contracts, regardless of their content.

Bilbo meanwhile buries his face in his hands. Thorin rubs his back soothingly, but seems at a loss of words himself. Thankfully no one mentions feet again, though that may have more to do with the fact that every time someone even _looks_ like they might say something, Thorin shoots them a glare and they shut up. It's nice, having a King at his disposal; Bilbo could get used to this.

Eventually — _eventually —_ they wrap it up.

Money changes hands a dozen more times, the final decree is ruled by Balin, and _Bombur,_ who had been sitting serenely the whole time hardly saying a peep, ends up walking away a very, very rich dwarf.

Pipeweed is shared round, more ale is poured, and that’s that. Bilbo feels a bit dazed, marvelling that at the end of it all, it really is _this_ easy. Everywhere he looks his friends are laughing, none of batting an eyelid at the two of them curled up together on the armchair, and there’s nothing but warmth and acceptance and love, and Thorin humming an unfamiliar tune into Bilbo’s neck, his arms a cradle of belonging.

It’s one of the best evenings Bilbo can remember, and the beginning of many, many more.

* * *

Thorin stops counting months after June.

April is the damp of spring, kissing the rain off Bilbo’s skin, unraveling him and holding him close. April is the rebuilding of Dale, the planting of seed, the opening of trade and the hearty celebrations of each milestone achievement. The Mountain breathes, shuffles into new life, grows.

May is falling asleep in Bilbo’s lap in hushed libraries, gardens full of new, young flowers, children playing on the mountain slopes. May is sunlit afternoons and lazy mornings, breakfast in bed and crumbs all over the sheets. May is great songs spreading throughout Middle Earth of Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, and Bilbo commissioning the bards to include a few extra details here and there to keep him humble. (There is a particularly lengthy song about sense of direction. Thorin laughs so hard he falls off his throne the first time it is played). 

June is the return of markets and the swell of voices and the first of the new crops to harvest. June is perfect concord between them in matters of state and policy and values and love, and _endless_ arguments about wedding cake, wedding garb, wedding decorations… about most things wedding related when it comes down to it. Hobbit marriage is a simple affair, after all: food and flowers, a big party, ribbons and dancing, and hobbits throw big parties all the time. In Bilbo’s mind marriage is essentially the legal bit of the exact relationship they already have. Thorin, on the other hand, is of the opinion that marriage the _biggest_ thing a person can do and the most _serious_ decision of their entire lives that therefore _must_ be the largest event in Erebor’s history.

Fortunately, they’ve gotten a lot better at navigating cultural differences by this point.

_(For June is the King's eyes brimming with tears when Bilbo says his vows, promising him his love in Thorin’s own language, Bilbo who’s smiling that sort of smile that can't be fought off, and Thorin’s trembling hand finds his fingers, closing around them and the rings they both now wear, as Gandalf blesses them and hands Thorin the crown of mithril flowers to bestow upon Bilbo’s brow)._

June teaches Thorin that he no longer needs to count the days as though any moment they might be stolen from him. June shows him that he doesn’t have to dread his own happiness for what it might do to him if he should lose it. June is when Thorin stops waiting for it all to collapse, and starts living without fear.

August brings thunderstorms. September brings hard-earned peace with Thranduil. October brings a visit to the Shire to tidy Bilbo’s affairs (or rather, retrieve his armchair and family pictures and hold Thorin back when he nearly tackles Lobelia for making off with Bilbo’s silverware).

More months pass, but Thorin no longer needs to count them.

Not when they have all the time in the world.

* * *

Sometimes Bilbo wonders at how different things could have been.

He thinks about change, and chance, and chaos, and how even the smallest and simplest of acts can have consequences beyond imagining.

He thinks about the power of fellowship, how people can and will do incredible, beautiful, hugely significant things with just a bit of friendship and love, for even the deepest of hurts can be allayed with the smallest of kindnesses.

Sometimes Bilbo finds himself rubbing the sensitive spot on Thorin’s ankle, and he thinks how far they’ve come, how far and how such a little thing brought them back together. 

He thinks about how sometimes all forever needs is something to start with.

* * *

_Epilogue_

The world curls around them, all warmth and gentleness.

Rain whispers against stone outside, the faintest drizzle coaxing them out from beneath warm covers. Beneath him, the mountain breaths with the faraway thrum of the deep-forges, the ever-present heartbeat of distant work. More prominently, another, closer heart beats esoteric time, a soothing thump under Thorin’s ear. Thorin lets it all wash over him: the rain, the murmur of beloved stone, the hazy bliss creeping across his neck and shoulders as Bilbo combs his fingers through Thorin’s hair, tangled from sleep. Thorin nuzzles closer contentedly, rubbing his beard against Bilbo’s belly, sinking further into the calm, warm softness. He breathes in the lingering scent of fresh earth and warm wood, salt and close bodies underneath.

“Tell me a story,” Thorin says.

The hand in his hair slows, soothing circles at the nape of Thorin’s neck as Bilbo thinks.

“In a mountain in the north, there lived a hobbit.” Bilbo begins, soft, like something beloved, reverent, like something sacred. “Not a cold, damp, empty mountain, full of dark caves and unfeeling rock and forgotten things. This was Erebor, and that means, warm stone, the hum of work and song, and all the comforts of home.”

Thorin smiles, remembering. “The smell of baking on a lazy morning.”

“Feasts in the great hall.” Bilbo echoes. “Roaring fires, green halls filled with light.”

“Fresh parchment. Smoking a pipe in your garden.”

“The smell of silver in your forge.”

“Your books.”

“A comfortable bed.”

“Preferably with you in it, yes.”

Bilbo laughs, low and sleepy. His arms come up around Thorin’s shoulders, enfolding him in warmth. Their legs tangle together. Bilbo traces invisible spirals on Thorin’s back, brushes over pale scars with infinite tenderness. Thorin noses at Bilbo’s neck. They touch. They breathe.

“The day is growing late,” he murmurs, and Bilbo makes a grumbling noise of complaint.

“It is only just past dawn.”

“I have the weaver’s guild to attend to.”

“I can offer a much more interesting subject.”

Thorin’s laugh rumbles through his chest. He stretches up, catching Bilbo’s lips in a kiss. Bilbo sighs into him. He slides his hand to cup Thorin’s face, turning in his hold to sink into a deeper kiss. Thorin’s eyelashes drift closed. Bilbo’s thumbs draw circles into the sensitive spots just under his ears, and Thorin he leans into the touch, humming. He tastes the curve of Bilbo’s smile.

When Thorin eventually moves to pull away, Bilbo’s arms tighten around him. “ _Nooo_ ,” he complains. “No moving. Lie still. I don’t want to get up.”

“But…”

“Not yet,” Bilbo amends. “The Mountain can run itself for a few more minutes. Let’s stay a moment.”

Thorin laughs. “Bilbo.”

“Just a few minutes,” Bilbo insists, kissing him. “Stay. Here, with me.”

He can’t. He knows he can’t. Thorin has a kingdom to run, council meetings and trade agreements to attend, petty disputes to solve and construction plans to approve, dignitaries to appease and new citizens to welcome.

But maybe it can wait a few more minutes.

Peace slips over them like a blanket on a summer evening. Thorin feels the stroke of Bilbo’s fingers against the base of his skull, one gentle hand cradling the back of his head. Bilbo bends down, catching Thorin’s lips in another slow, searing kiss.

“Stay,” Bilbo whispers, his smile etching into Thorin’s lips.

And Thorin does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: storyforsomeone  
> Artist: MulaSaWala
> 
> _
> 
> Thanks again to the mods of TRSB for doing such a fantastic job setting this challenge up, to MulaSaWala for inspiring this work and generally being awesome, and a thanks to you, for reading! 
> 
> As always, I'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback you may have, and please feel free to come say hi on tumblr at https://storiesforsomeone.tumblr.com


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